Monday, September 11, 1961: Hurricane Carla

With top winds estimated at 150 miles per hour, the eye of Hurricane Carla makes landfall between Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca, Texas. Half a million people had evacuated the Texas coastline; as a result, the death toll was a relatively low 46. The hurricane was also noteworthy in that it marked the first time a television reporter -- Dan Rather, working for CBS's Houston affiliate, KHOU-TV -- provided continuous live reports from Galveston Island while riding out the storm.

Photo by Flip Schulke

* Summary (from National Weather Service, Corpus Christi, Texas): @

* U.S. Weather Bureau advisories and bulletins (PDF): @

* "In the Eye of a Mighty Storm" (Life magazine, September 22): @

* Weather Bureau film: @

* Newsreel: @

* "Hurricane Carla Aftermath" (silent footage): @ and @

* "Rather in the Eye of the Storm" (CBS video): @

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