THE COAST 77 Community Campus. Today the school has 10,080 students, and in 2006 President George W. Bush spoke at its commencement, becoming the first sitting president to speak at a community college graduation. Hurricanes Along the Mississippi Coast and inland, hurricanes are a constant threat. Each summer and fall, citizens speculated about hurricanes. The area experienced several hurricanes, like the storm in 1841, but the 1893 storm was particularly powerful and destructive. Wharves, railroad bridges, stores, warehouses, vehicular bridges, homes, schooners, and G.W. Dunbar’s seafood cannery were all damaged or destroyed completely in this storm. Newspapers called this the Storm of the Century. This was a Category 4 storm with 115 mile- per-hour winds and a fifteen-foot storm surge. Overall, it resulted in 1,500 deaths. It is ranked as the fourth deadliest storm in United States history. The Mississippi Coast experienced three more deadly storms in the twentieth century. The 1947 hurricane, Hurricane Camille (1969), and Hurricane Katrina (2005) all brought Mississippians to their knees. The 1947 storm was a Category 1 that struck the coast on September 19. In Bay St. Louis, the United States Weather Bureau at New Orleans reported 100-mile-per-hour winds. Waveland suffered extreme damage in this hurricane because of its low-lying locale. Flooding was intense. In this storm, twenty-two people died in Mississippi, with twelve of those from Hancock County. Five of the victims were from Waveland. By 1950, most businesses had resumed. In 1969, Hurricane Camille struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This was a Category 5 storm, packing 165 mile-per- hour sustained winds and probably up to 200 mile-per-hour wind gusts when it made landfall on August 17. The storm was so powerful it destroyed all weather measuring devices along the coast. Camille was the second most intense hurricane in United States history and caused 143 deaths along the coast and $1.4 billion in damages. The last of the big three hurricanes was Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005. The storm slammed ashore as a Category 3 with tidal waves in excess of twenty- four feet in some coastal areas. Almost total destruction resulted along the immediate coast, particularly in Hancock County and Harrison County. Mississippi recorded 238 deaths, with sixty-seven missing. The storm caused approximately $100 billion worth of damage, and many citizens were unable to rebuild. By 2010 significant recovery was evident, but much remains to testify about the worst natural disaster to strike North America. Fruit and Vegetable Farming Truck farming was an enterprise that some coastal citizens pursued in spite of annual hurricane threats. With the arrival of the railroad, the community known as Rosalie in Harrison County changed its name to Scott’s Station in honor of George Scott, a local man who donated land for a train depot. The New Orleans, Mobile & Chattanooga Railroad used the depot until 1880 when the Louisville & Nashville Railroad purchased it. During this time, Robert Boggs moved into the area and settled in what is today called Boggsdale, within the Long Beach city limits. Three times this family has rebuilt their homes because of the destructive forces of hurricanes—1947, Camille, and Katrina. It was James O. Thomas, however, of Lebanon, Tennessee, who changed the name of the community once more in 1882 to Long Beach. Long Beach would capitalize on truck farming. When William J. Quarles arrived in Long Beach to visit his friend James Thomas, he liked what he saw and moved his family to the Harrison County community. Thomas and Quarles began truck farming in Long Beach as an entrepreneurial venture. They introduced radishes as a cash crop, and when the city incorporated in 1905, up to 150 railroad carloads of packed “Long Beach Long Reds” were being shipped to cities such as Detroit and Cleveland. Long Beach became known as the Radish Capital of the World. Truck farming was profitable for the town until 1921, when other markets replaced it. In 1918, reports from Stone County indicated that cane syrup was being shipped out of the county, as were sweet potato plants. V. L. Beyer of the Beyer Plant Company stated sweet potatoes were becoming a lucrative food crop and that his plants had gone to seventeen different states for cultivation. Additionally, the Finkbine Lumber Company had begun to expand its operations into agricultural endeavors as early as 1912. The company formed a subsidiary named the American Pickle and Canning Company at that time. The company used cutover land Along the Mississippi coast and inland, hurricanes are a constant threat. Each summer and fall, citizens speculated about hurricanes.