Remembering Hurricane Dora 50 years later

Fifty years ago Hurricane Dora made landfall on the First Coast and for survivors it's a day they'll never forget.

"We lived in a four story building and I watched it sway," said one survivor.

After chugging through the Atlantic, Dora made landfall just north of St. Augustine on September 10^th, 1964.

The storm had sustained winds of about 125 miles per hour…which Warning Coordination Meterorologist Al Sandrik with the National Weather Service says created a massive storm surge.

"Most of the damage that was done in North Florida and even Southeastern Georgia up at St. Simons Island was done by the wave action," said Sandrik.

The storm was unique in the sense that it was very slow moving and dumped a lot of rain. Downtown Jacksonville got seven inches of rain, while some nearby towns reported getting up to 23 inches of rain.

"The winds with Dora were really strongest across the Jacksonville, Fernadina Beach and Camden County areas," said Sandrik.

Much of Jacksonville was left without power for six days, but while all of Duval County was affected. The worst of the damage came at the beaches. Most beaches back in the 1960’s had seawalls for defense, but in the aftermath of the storm most of them were wiped out, along with a lot of beachfront property.

"Of course we lost the Le Chateau restaurant in Atlantic Beach and many of the piers were significantly damaged in the area," said Sandrik.

All in all the storm was responsible for five deaths and about $250 million in damage. To this day, Dora is the only hurricane of record to make direct landfall over Jacksonville. The location and the shape of our coast line makes it difficult for hurricanes to hit our region. But when a storm does hit, that defense becomes our worst enemy as it traps much of the rain right over the city.

In the case of Dora though Jacksonville fared pretty well. The Beatles actually performed in Jacksonville just two days after the Hurricane, despite many areas still not having power, but meterologists warn that Dora shouldn’t make us underestimate the potential for more storms on the first coast.

"Dora was a category two hurricane at best as it made landfall and it was really along the beaches so I think in some ways it really gave people a bad message," said Sandrik.

The name Dora was retired as a Hurricane name following the storm. It was replaced by Dolly is the 1968 Hurricane season.