Hurricane Dora In Florida

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 11

Hurricane Dora In Florida

<N Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) JACKSONVILLE BEACH (Florida), September 10. The hurricane Dora smashed a 200mile stretch of Florida’s north-east coast last night as flood tides crashed against towns, destroying buildings and felling power lines and trees. Winds up to 96 miles an | hour raged along the coast ■ and ocean rollers roared, ashore on top of seven-foot! tides. The Jacksonville w?ather| bureau said: “There is the! possibility that the eye of I

. Dora may be on the Florida coast at any time.” Nearly 20,000 refugees from the ocean front huddled in emergency Florida shelters, many of them for the second night, as Dora lingered not far off the coast. Heavy seas and high winds accompanying Dora tore out windows, unroofed buildings, undermined roads and washed away piers in a wholesale rampage. Many trees toppled and tore down power and communications lines as they fell. A pale and shaken police officer at Jacksonville Beach 'reported his car was almost ; blown away. “You just can’t I keep your car on the ground. | The wind picks it up when! you slow down,” he said. ! The “eye” of the storm varied between 40 and 50 i miles wide, making the

i.storm’s geometric centre very 'difficult to track. The storm i had moved very little and i i apparently erratically for . more than 12 hours. Fringe winds from Dora I lashed the multi-million dollar rocket centre at Cape Ken- > nedy but a change in the : storm’s course saved the , spaceport from possible major I damage. i It was the second time in I two weeks that the cape I escaped a hurricane after being threatened by a direct hit Hurricane Cleo brushed the area on August 28 with peak winds of 72 miles an hour. ! Top wind gusts of 58 m.p.h. iwere reported at ground level at the cape yesterday but space agency emergency crews recorded a 69 m.p.h. reading on top of the 328-foot Saturn 1 gantry.

The Saturn 1 super rocket, the only booster left on its launch stand to ride out the blow, apparently weathered the storm without incident. It had been set to orbit a dummy moonship on September 17 but the storm disrupted test schedules and may cause a delay. Five other rockets were dismantled yesterday when the storm aimed its full fury toward the cape. Among the rockets taken down was the Titan 2 being readied for the final unmanned Gemini shot late this autumn. Space agency and Air Force spokesmen said preliminarychecks of the cape disclosed no damage. There also was little damage reported in residential areas along the beaches south of the cape and on the mainland.