Camille Resource Center Coming to Nelson County

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Camille Resource Center Coming to Nelson County

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P.O. Box 39

Lovingston, VA 22949

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www.historicnelson.org

Camille Resource Center Under Development

Oakland – The Nelson County Museum of History is developing the Camille Resource Center to make hundreds of documents, photos and videos related to the county’s greatest natural disaster easily accessible to the public.

The museum has received two grants, totaling $9,000, on its way to a total of $30,000 to create the center. At its heart will be at least one computer kiosk on which digital versions of hundreds of photographs, videos, documents, oral histories and newspaper and magazine articles would be stored. The museum is seeking to develop an easy-to-navigate interface based on touch-screen technology so the public can access the Camille materials. Some materials would also be placed on a web site.

The Center will also include, at the request of Nelson County Public School teachers, a large topographical map of the county showing how Camille caused landslides and flooding far in excess of any other natural event. The Center would also display an animation of the weather phenomenon that led to upwards of 27 inches of rain falling on the county in a five hour period.

Camille hit Nelson County on the night of Aug. 19-20, 1969, after killing 140 people on the Gulf Coast and traveling northward where it collided with two other storm systems in the Ohio River Valley before drifting over Nelson. The rain and resulting landslides killed 125 people in Nelson and 25 more in other parts of Virginia. It caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

The Camille Resource Center will be located at Oakland on U.S. 29, about four miles south of Lovingston and one mile north of Rt. 56 in Colleen. The museum is currently open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 – 4 p.m.

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