Chapter 06
Body Surfing in Hurricane Dora
On the afternoon of (Wednesday) September 9, 1964, Bob Rozear and I were at the Jax Beach lifeguard station as it was being boarded up. Actually I think we just put masking tape on the windows. No one was allowed to be in the station that night. Dora later made landfall in St. Augustine around Midnight. Bob and I decided to go body surfing. The waves were 8-10 feet and the current was moving rapidly south. We swam out in front of the station (without fins) and were unable to get out past the first break. It was typical Victory at Sea conditions. We were about halfway to the pier at 6th Avenue South, when we realized we weren't going to get outside. We started swimming in, but couldn't get in fast enough. Both of us looked at each other before a giant wave swept us through the pier. My life didn't flash in front of my eyes, but that was as scared as I've ever been. We both curled up in the fetal position and emerged unscathed on the south side of the pier after being swept through by a wave. The pilings were maybe 10 feet or so apart, and we missed them all. Bob and I looked at each other elatedly and swam in to shore. After all that, we decided we were going to at least ride one wave. We walked up on the pier and made our way around the pavilion on one side to the pier proper. We walked out about halfway and jumped off the south side into the back side of a wave. We swam into the face of the next wave and rode it to shore. We got pounded, but it was fun and worth it. We walked back up to the beach to the station and went our separate ways. Bob revised the Manual of Beach Practice for the Lifesaving Corps, and later on was murdered. RIP.
February 12, 2012
My memories of Hurricane Dora are dim, but I do remember telling my parents that being a member of the American Red Cross Volunteer Life Saving Corps required that I go to the beaches to provide my assistance. I was 16 years of age at the time, and took the bus to Neptune Beach. I had made prior arrangements to meet with David Stearns, my class mate from the Summer of '64 recruit class, and ended up staying the night at his parent's house located around five or six blocks from the ocean. We were up and down all night mopping up water that was seeping in through the foundation of the house. It seemed that the wind and rain was constantly beating against the side of the house. The next day we met up with George Garcia who had moved one of the life guard trucks to his house for safety, and we took the truck to the life guard station via a flooded 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (partially) street. As we got close to the station, the truck backfired due to moisture accumulation from the flooding and rain, and several National Guard troops who were called out due to looting in the area swung their rifles around in our direction. Fortunately, the situation did not get out of hand, and we proceeded to the station which had been severely damaged. The boat room door had caved in from the pounding waves and there was still thigh deep water that we were wading around in on the ground floor. Deciding that this was not the safest place to be, we left only to revisit the beach proper after the flooding resided a day or two later. There were houses that had been washed into the ocean, but surprisingly or at least in the eyes of sixteen year old with no vested interest in property, there did not seem to be a lot of damage beyond the ocean front which I suspect is why there are still some of the same houses standing today. There was a considerable amount of sand washed away by the rough ocean and currents. Some time afterwards, the City of Jacksonville (and I assume Jax, Neptune and Atlantic Beaches) brought in automobile bodies which lined the shoreline to prevent further erosion. Those were subsequently replace by large bolders some of which you can still see the tops of today.
David Jones
May 2014
