DISASTERS: Audrey's Day of Horror

Hurricane Audrey, the season's first, was born as a Gulf of Mexico squall in a wide low-pressure area. As it blew north, U.S. weather bureaus warned the Gulf Coast that a dangerously violent storm was on the way. But the bayou people of extreme southwestern Louisiana felt secure in their swamp-girded isolation and their simple faiths ("I wasn't much afraid," said one woman, "because the Lord told us he would never destroy this earth with water again"). Many of them stayed in their homes—and Audrey killed them in a day of sheerest horror.

Out of the Gulf, source of livelihood...

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