Hurricane Camille made landfall at Pass Christian on August 17, 1969, with sustained winds near 190 mph — the second-strongest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. mainland at the time. It killed 143 people on the Mississippi coast and obliterated nearly every structure within a half-mile of the beach. The Richelieu Apartments in Pass Christian became a national symbol of misplaced confidence: two dozen people threw a hurricane party on the top floor. None survived. Thirty-six years later, Katrina's 28-foot storm surge did it again — wiping the same coastline clean from Waveland to Pascagoula. Entire neighborhoods vanished. The Biloxi lighthouse, built in 1848, was one of the only structures left standing on the beachfront. Both storms revealed the same truth: this coast sits at the edge of the buildable world, and the people who live here know it. They rebuild anyway. The post-Katrina coast is newer than most visitors expect — nearly every beachfront building dates to 2006 or later. That newness is itself a monument to what was lost.