Name: Museum of the Gulf Coast Collection - Hurricane Carla Aftermath (1961)
Uploaded: 2024-02-28T22:34:43+00:00
Description: This home movie captures the destruction left by Hurricane Carla in Port Arthur, a coastal city near Beaumont, in September 1961.

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Museum of the Gulf Coast Collection - Hurricane Carla Aftermath (1961)

Museum of the Gulf Coast

Silent | 1961 | Color | N/A

Categories:

Museum of the Gulf Coast

Texas Locations:

Jefferson County

Port Arthur

Groves

This home movie captures the destruction left by Hurricane Carla in Port Arthur, a coastal city near Beaumont, in September 1961. The Category-5 hurricane arrived with 175 mph tornadoes, torrential rains, and a 22-foot storm surge. The storm also produced several tornadoes, including an F4 near Galveston that remains the strongest hurricane-spawned tornado ever recorded. The film shows some of the damage, including torn-off roofs, washed out yards, and demolished houses.

Carla is the second most intense hurricane to ever hit the Texas coast (the most intense was the "Indianola" hurricane of 1886.) Though the storm made landfall between Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca, it was so large that entire coast was affected; over half a million residents were evacuated, and damage was reported as far inland as Dallas. Carla caused $325 million (today $2.03 billion) in damage and killed 31 Texans. An interesting note from the 1961 hurricane: then little known news anchor Dan Rather reported live during the storm from the Galveston seawall. It was the first live broadcast during a hurricane, later to become common practice in weather reporting.

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