Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing 256 and causing $1.42 billion in damage.

The Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS) is a tropical cyclone intensity scale that classifies hurricanes—which in the Western Hemisphere are tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions and tropical storms—into five categories distinguished by the intensities of their sustained winds. This measuring system was formerly known as the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale, or SSHS.

Hurricane Camille was an extremely powerful, devastating and catastrophic Atlantic hurricane which became the second most intense on record to strike the United States and is one of the four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the United States.

The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the Gulf States.