page_title: September 1961
section_title: September 11, 1961 (Monday)
hierarchical_section_title: September 1961 / September 11, 1961 (Monday)
caption_attribution_description: English: A house ravished by Hurricane Carla in Port O'Connor, Texas.
context_page_description: The following events occurred in September 1961:
context_section_description: The World Wildlife Fund (now referred to as the World Wide Fund for Nature) was founded, with the opening of an office in Morges, Switzerland, and with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands serving as its first President.
  Hurricane Carla struck Texas at 2:00 pm, with winds of 173 miles per hour (278 km/h). Coming as a Category 5 storm, Carla weakened just before landfall at Port O'Connor and Port Lavaca, Texas, the largest on record in the Atlantic basin at the time. Between 300,000 and 500,000 residents of Texas and Louisiana had fled the area in what was described at the time as "the greatest evacuation in U.S. history".
  In quadrennial voting in Norway for the 150 seats in the Storting, the Arbeiderpartiet (Labor Party) lost four seats and its majority, finishing with 74, but Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen was able to retain his office.
  The Austrian television channel ORF2 was launched under the name Versuchsprogramm, as a technical test programme.
  Born:
  E.G. Daily, American actress and singer known for Rugrats and The Powerpuff Girls
  Virginia Madsen, American actress and film producer, in Chicago
  Died: Leo Carrillo, 80, American actor best known for his role as Pancho on the television show The Cisco Kid
caption: Destruction after America's largest evacuation
exif: {}