Page 112 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

CHAPTER 33 – Dora - Jacksonville’s First Full-force Hurricane

My first concern following Cleo was the fact that we were under a hurricane warning
for more than 24 hours for winds that were no higher than 50 mph. On Monday, August
31, I described what Jacksonville’s greatest hurricane danger would be, one that struck
our coast full-force from the Atlantic, not weakened from passing over land. Little did I
know that we would face that danger in a little more than a week.

During the first week of September, I watched the next tropical storm form over the
mid-Atlantic Ocean well east of the Leeward Islands. It was headed in the direction of
Bermuda, so I thought most storms on this course would miss the U.S. mainland. Over
the weekend I watched another hurricane, named Ethel, catching up with Dora on
nearly the same track. When Dora made a turn towards the west, I knew that
Jacksonville and northeast Florida would be faced with a real hurricane threat.

At the time, I was the only weatherman at Channel 4. I began my day around 10 AM
and was not finished until 11:35 PM when the late show came on. Taking my 16 mm
Victor camera, I filmed all of my hurricane preparations at home. I moved all the kid’s
toys, the patio furniture, trash cans, and plants inside. I drove stakes in the ground and
used rope to brace my younger trees and secure my aluminum patio roof. I filmed by
battery radio, including the car radio, and the canned goods among other things
necessary during a hurricane. After checking weather reports at the Weather Bureau
office, I filmed the low roadway that would be flooded by Trout River at Main Street.

With the films ready for processing in Channel 4’s lab, I made my weather report on the
Midday Show at 1 PM and prepared the weather office for the long hours I would face
for at least three days. In my 6 PM Newsnight report on Monday, September 7, I
indicated that Dora would come ashore near St. Augustine. I wrote a large 100 over the
St. Johns River south of Jacksonville and circled it, stating that we could expect 100
mph winds from Dora around Wednesday. This was not generally believed because the
Weather Bureau advisory was largely focused on Dora relative to the Kennedy Space
Center at Cape Canaveral.

I was certain that a slight jog to the northwest would cause Dora to slam the coast near
St. Augustine. With no weather stations out in the Atlantic, I was unable to track the
exact center of the storm. I studied each the hurricane advisory from the Miami

104