On the night of August 19, 1969, Massies Mill became one of the hardest hit communities when the remnants of Hurricane Camille arrived. The hurricane had come ashore on the Gulf Coast near the mouth of the Mississippi River as a Category 5 storm, one of only 3 to strike the US mainland during the 20th century. The hurricane flattened nearly everything along the coast of the U.S. state of Mississippi, and caused additional flooding and deaths inland. The storm had lost strength as it crossed hundreds of miles of land, and was downgraded by the National Weather Service to Tropical Storm status as it moved northwardly along the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains and into Virginia. It still carried incredible amounts of moisture and contained sufficient strength and low pressure to pull in additional moisture.