Page 114 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

Suddenly, the next advisory at 1 PM stated that Dora was centered 65 miles
east-northeast of St. Augustine. I had been monitoring the Daytona Beach reports and
saw that the barometric pressure was still falling from 29.41 inches to 29.23 inches, an
indication that Dora was still closing in on the coast east-southeast of St. Augustine.
After reporting this discrepancy, I received word from Jacksonville Naval Air Station
that my storm position was correct! With the wind and rain squalls increasing over
Jacksonville, we suddenly lost power. Having no emergency generator, Channel 4 was
off the air, but I continued giving reports on the storm via telephone. Bill Greenwood
called me from WMBR radio in Jacksonville, and I was asked by stations as far away as
Douglas, GA for storm reports.

Finally, around midnight, Dora’s eye came ashore at St. Augustine. The storm surge in
the St. Johns River was about 5 feet. The driveway to the station on Southampton Road
was covered by two feet of water. Shortly after midnight, I got a call from a woman in
Green Cove Springs who said that the winds and rain had stopped and she could hear
flocks of birds outside. When phone calls ceased, I drove through the city towards my
house, surprised that the winds were not as high as they were earlier in the evening.
They were only 30 to 40 mph. Having been awake for 40 hours, I went into my home
and quickly dropped off to sleep.
After breakfast on Thursday morning, the sun came out and the northeast winds had
subsided and shifted to the southeast. I saw that the trees that I had braced from the
storm still stood, so I drove through Riverview to Carbondale Drive and filmed a
neighborhood with a dozen snapped pine trees around houses near Trout River. I then
drove via Broward Road to Main Street where the swollen river was still flooding part
of the roadway. Upon reaching Channel 4, I discovered the power had been restored.
After removing the film from my camera for processing, I saw Glen Marshall, our
Station Manager. He told me to take the next two days off. Since I was the only
meteorologist at the station, I had to continue doing my three regular weather reports,
the Midday Show at 1 PM and the 6 and 11 PM newscasts.

Upon driving home, I stopped at the 7-11 in Lake Forest. The man at the counter told
me that he had heard that Dora was coming back our way. He was right! Sure enough
on Saturday, my day off, the storm had raced eastward across southern Georgia. A
backlash band of thunderstorms raced eastward through the Jacksonville area causing
us to lose power again, but this time only for a short time.

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