Page 104 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

spent 30 minutes afterward answering questions about the weather and cycles. A
second damaging northeaster hit on February 3-5, 1963, causing one million dollars
damage. The property where the boardwalk and seawall once stood was a pile of mass
destruction. The battle to stop the devastation from ocean waves included dumping
refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and even old car bodies into the churning
water.

In 1963, I was elected Chairman of the Northeast Florida Branch of the American
Meteorological Society. Vice Chairman was Joe Sassman, who took over my former
job in the Weather Bureau as Quality Control Officer for Federal Aviation Agency
flight briefers. The NEFBAMS (Northeast Florida American Meteorological Society)
were very useful sounding boards for discussing recent weather events.

I also met a group of youngsters at the Children’s Museum in Riverside. The following
year we met at the new Museum of Science and History (MOSH) near Friendship
Fountain. The height of its towering spouts of water was adjusted by a wind
anemometer that kept the spray from soaking spectators in the park.

We formed an organization called Jacksonville Weather Watchers. Most of them
participated in reading their rain gauges and reporting the daily total to me so I could
report neighborhood weather to our TV viewers.
These boys had very successful lives. Bill Riebsame Travis became an author of
several environmental books and taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and
Charles McCool who had served as City Manager of Florida cities that included New
Port Richey and Daytona Beach Shores. Don Montague originally became a helicopter
pilot, then an airlines pilot and Daryl McCollister became a TV weatherman in
Jacksonville and Chattanooga, TN. Jeff Sheffield became director of North Florida
Transportation Planning. Channel 12 Meteorologist Bill Zeliff was instrumental in
obtaining weather instruments for the Museum, directed by Doris Whitmore.

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