| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 28 |
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THE KILLER FROST OF 1983
We were enjoying a beautiful fall like none other, in fact it was so nice that Christmas Eve day the weather was
downright blissfully balmy.
We went out on the town with friends in short sleeve shirts that evening.
When we went to bed aboard our boat Dursmirg we slept with our front hatch wide open over our front berth to let in
a 72 degree delightfully mild and pleasant breeze that made us happy to be there.
It was too good to be true and sure enough during the night the wind swung around to the northwest and we awoke
shuddering from the cold with screaming winds and arctic conditions driven by “The Arctic Siberian Express” that
closed its icy grip on St. Augustine and brought with it an unprecedented 10˚ F/-8C˚.
Oh, it did painfully freeze us to the bone with its stabbing arctic cold!
Jane and I rode our bicycles out that Christmas day morning bundled up in our Eskimo garb for our usual breakfast
of bacon, eggs and grits at the Days Inn restaurant where we were regulars.
Wow! St. Augustine was hit hard in ways we hadn’t even imagined. Besides all of the flowers frozen stiff and the
yards already glazed with a sheet of ice, from under many homes the broken water pipes had sent geysers of water
spraying out to make mini white sparkling mountains of frozen ice crystals in the yards.
Cars and trucks everywhere had frozen radiators and many had ice-fractured engine blocks as witnessed by the
telltale frozen puddles on the ground under them.
Make no mistake about it, this was destructively catastrophic!
St. Augustine was unique in its flora having bananas and citrus but at the extreme northern limits on the east coast
of North America. We even had a few token mangrove bushes at the end of Hospital Creek in front of our house.
Mangroves being found at St. Augustine were almost a freak of nature because we were more than one hundred
miles north of Cape Canaveral, considered to be the extreme northern limits of tropical vegetation.
Well, this day saw the end of mangroves in St. Augustine and in fact they were completely wiped out all the way
down past New Smyrna, a hundred miles to the south by this killer take all winter storm.
As Jane and I sat at breakfast that bewildering morning pondering over all of the devastation we had witnessed we
realized that our friends were out of town and their houses would be vulnerable to broken pipes due to the extreme
weather conditions.
We hurried home and this time took our motor vehicle and drove.
Our northern Wisconsin Eskimo blood had thinned by many years of living down in the sunny south country so we
just gave in to the car with its comfortable heater and I must admit it really did feel good.
We did make it in time to save our friends plumbing. If the water didn’t flow, it would freeze and burst the pipes so all
we needed to do was open the water faucets and let them steadily drip.
Years earlier when we had lived back in northern Wisconsin and the winter temperature would finally climb, after a
protracted sub-zero arctic cold snap, up to a minus 10˚F we would actually go out for a walk, but not anymore…we
had become Florida cream-puffs.
St. Augustine was Mr. In-between when it came to weather and so very rarely got punished by those killer frost bitten
arctic blasts that the locals would inadvertently be lulled into a false sense of security when it came to their
vegetation.
Always testing the limits the locals persisted in planting citrus and bananas that many times would mature and thrive
for many years. But then there were no old citrus trees in St. Augustine.
Wintertime in St. Augustine the marsh grass behind us would first turn golden with stocks of seeds like
a mature grain field then eventually become the dull parched out brown you see behind us in the above
photo.
It wouldn’t be until the warm heavy rains of spring came that the marsh grass would send up its new
bright green summertime shoots.
The above photo was taken beside our 580 foot dock in our front yard on Dufferin Street.
next chapter
We were enjoying a beautiful fall like none other, in fact it was so nice that Christmas Eve day the weather was
downright blissfully balmy.
We went out on the town with friends in short sleeve shirts that evening.
When we went to bed aboard our boat Dursmirg we slept with our front hatch wide open over our front berth to let in
a 72 degree delightfully mild and pleasant breeze that made us happy to be there.
It was too good to be true and sure enough during the night the wind swung around to the northwest and we awoke
shuddering from the cold with screaming winds and arctic conditions driven by “The Arctic Siberian Express” that
closed its icy grip on St. Augustine and brought with it an unprecedented 10˚ F/-8C˚.
Oh, it did painfully freeze us to the bone with its stabbing arctic cold!
Jane and I rode our bicycles out that Christmas day morning bundled up in our Eskimo garb for our usual breakfast
of bacon, eggs and grits at the Days Inn restaurant where we were regulars.
Wow! St. Augustine was hit hard in ways we hadn’t even imagined. Besides all of the flowers frozen stiff and the
yards already glazed with a sheet of ice, from under many homes the broken water pipes had sent geysers of water
spraying out to make mini white sparkling mountains of frozen ice crystals in the yards.
Cars and trucks everywhere had frozen radiators and many had ice-fractured engine blocks as witnessed by the
telltale frozen puddles on the ground under them.
Make no mistake about it, this was destructively catastrophic!
St. Augustine was unique in its flora having bananas and citrus but at the extreme northern limits on the east coast
of North America. We even had a few token mangrove bushes at the end of Hospital Creek in front of our house.
Mangroves being found at St. Augustine were almost a freak of nature because we were more than one hundred
miles north of Cape Canaveral, considered to be the extreme northern limits of tropical vegetation.
Well, this day saw the end of mangroves in St. Augustine and in fact they were completely wiped out all the way
down past New Smyrna, a hundred miles to the south by this killer take all winter storm.
As Jane and I sat at breakfast that bewildering morning pondering over all of the devastation we had witnessed we
realized that our friends were out of town and their houses would be vulnerable to broken pipes due to the extreme
weather conditions.
We hurried home and this time took our motor vehicle and drove.
Our northern Wisconsin Eskimo blood had thinned by many years of living down in the sunny south country so we
just gave in to the car with its comfortable heater and I must admit it really did feel good.
We did make it in time to save our friends plumbing. If the water didn’t flow, it would freeze and burst the pipes so all
we needed to do was open the water faucets and let them steadily drip.
Years earlier when we had lived back in northern Wisconsin and the winter temperature would finally climb, after a
protracted sub-zero arctic cold snap, up to a minus 10˚F we would actually go out for a walk, but not anymore…we
had become Florida cream-puffs.
St. Augustine was Mr. In-between when it came to weather and so very rarely got punished by those killer frost bitten
arctic blasts that the locals would inadvertently be lulled into a false sense of security when it came to their
vegetation.
Always testing the limits the locals persisted in planting citrus and bananas that many times would mature and thrive
for many years. But then there were no old citrus trees in St. Augustine.
Wintertime in St. Augustine the marsh grass behind us would first turn golden with stocks of seeds like
a mature grain field then eventually become the dull parched out brown you see behind us in the above
photo.
It wouldn’t be until the warm heavy rains of spring came that the marsh grass would send up its new
bright green summertime shoots.
The above photo was taken beside our 580 foot dock in our front yard on Dufferin Street.
next chapter
