Volunteers and relief workers were everywhere, and he gathered a crew to clean out his office downtown. The waterline on the downstairs walls was exactly seven and a half feet and everything was ruined. He couldn’t imagine practicing law there, but then every office around him was in the same mess. Giving up was not an option, and each passing day brought a small improvement.
Late in the afternoons, as the sun was fading and the air was somewhat cooler, he checked on his neighbors and helped clear debris and make repairs. Almost everyone was checking on someone else. The damaged homes were too hot to sit in, and so they gathered under shade trees that were still standing. Joe Humphrey, three doors down, had somehow smuggled in a case of beer from a National Guardsman, who also sent a bag of ice, and the cold Falstaff had never tasted so good. The neighbors shared everything—beer, cigarettes, food, water, encouragement, and stories.
They had survived. Others were not so fortunate, and much of the gossip on the street was about those who died.
* * *
The Rudy Law Firm reopened on October 2, some six weeks after Camille. Jesse spent most of the first day using his new phone to badger his insurance adjuster. The company, Action Risk Underwriters, was based in Chicago and was one of the four largest insurers on the Coast. In the weeks following the storm, it became apparent to Jesse that ARU and the others were stonewalling all claims and had no intention of honoring the policies in a forthright manner. Their blanket denials were simple: The damages were caused by water, not wind.
When the courthouse reopened for business on October 10, Jesse marched in and filed fourteen lawsuits on behalf of himself and his neighbors. He sued the four largest insurance companies, demanding full payment, plus punitive damages for bad faith. He had been threatening to sue for weeks and the companies would hardly return his phone calls. With at least 20,000 flattened or seriously damaged homes, their exposure was enormous. Their strategy was taking shape. They would deny all claims, sit on their money, drag out the process, and hope most policy holders wouldn’t have the means to litigate.
Meanwhile, folks were trying to survive with tarps over their heads and plywood over their windows. Many homes were uninhabitable and their owners were camping in their backyards. Others were living in tents. Still others had been forced to flee and had moved in with friends and relatives throughout south Mississippi. In the woods north of town, an entire community, nicknamed Camille Ville, sprung up overnight and a thousand people lived in tents and campers. Most of them owned valid insurance policies but couldn’t find an adjuster.
Jesse was angry and on a mission. When he filed the first wave of lawsuits, he tipped off the Gulf Coast Register and happily sat down for an interview. The next day he was on the front page and his office phone began ringing. It would not stop for months.
In terms of making money, the cases were not valuable. In 1969 the average home in Harrison County was assessed at $22,000. Jesse and Agnes had paid $23,500 for theirs four years earlier, and a contractor had estimated its storm damage to be $8,500, not including furniture. His first lawsuits were in that range, and all of them were for wind damage. He had inspected each of the homes and knew damned well that they had not been damaged by the storm surge. In one testy exchange with an adjuster, he had explained that the water damage occurred in a downpour after the roof was blown off. Camille dropped ten inches of rain in twelve hours. Remove the roof and everything below gets soaked. Indeed, with nothing but flimsy plastic tarps as protection, every good rainstorm brought new adventures for the homeowners.
The insurance company denied the claim anyway.
He filed the simpler cases first. The more complicated ones would involve both wind and water damage, and he would pursue those later. There were plenty to choose from. Word spread quickly and clients were pouring in. He was getting much more than he bargained for and worried about covering the overhead. But, that had been a constant worry long before Camille. The second mortgage from his campaign two years earlier had not been fully paid off.
He had little time to worry and there was no turning back. He had cornered the market on Camille cases and was filing a dozen each week. He worked eighteen hours a day, six days a week, and had entered another zone where nothing mattered but the cause. With Keith back in college, for his senior year, and Agnes holding the family together, he was seriously understaffed. His teenage daughters, Beverly and Laura, were at the office after school and often into the night trying to keep the files organized.