Unseasonably, Unreasonably Cold

By KURT ANDERSEN

A brutal December kills 500 and ruins $500 million in crops

December is supposed to be cold, sure, but temperatures on the order of last week's record breakers (--52DEG in Wisdom, Mont.; --14DEG in Indianapolis; 0DEG in Atlanta) are unseasonably, unreasonably cold. Readings in the Central Plains have been 36DEG below normal. Not since record keeping began had there been December days so cold in Chicago (--25DEG), New Orleans (14DEG) and dozens of other places in the country's heartland. Nor did the vicious cold just blow in, flaunt its power briefly and leave. The mercury went down and stayed down: stayed below zero for eight days in Omaha, ten days in Sioux Falls, S. Dak., three days in St. Louis. Much of the South suffered the most devastating cold in 20 years, and in the Great Plains and Midwest, weather historians saw parallels with dreadful pioneer winters. "This is decidedly the coldest December in Iowa," said State Climatologist Paul Waite. "It looks like it will beat 1876." Said National Weather Service Meteorologist Kenneth Bergman: "When the records are all in, this may be the worst December in 100 years for the whole U.S."

The worst in many ways. Crop losses, particularly those of citrus fruit in the Sunbelt, could total $500 million. Deaths directly and indirectly attributable to the two-week freeze numbered nearly 500. Tens of thousands of lives were disrupted.

Most of the subzero zone, which stretched from the Rockies east to the Alleghenies, began to warm up just after Christmas, prompting an epidemic of jokes about 15DEG "heat waves." Midweek, however, the bitter cold snapped back down the country's spine, setting records in cities such as Casper, Wyo. (--26DEG), Denver (15DEG) and Amarillo, Texas (--5DEG). Nor was the worst over for much of the Deep South. Tornadoes roared through Georgia and Florida on Thursday.

In Tampa, a few minutes away from fields of ruined fruit, a Government forecaster sounded a bit defensive. "It was practically impossible to forecast," said NWS Meteorologist David Rittenberry. The freeze, he added, "just came rolling right in." According to weather experts, high-altitude wind patterns shifted so that cold Arctic air, instead of warming gradually as it drifted east over the U.S., rushed due south.

Across the U.S., the Arctic downdraft froze bodies of water large and small, sometimes with dire results. The Snake River in Idaho was stopped up by a ten-mile-long ice jam, threatening floods, and Louisiana's Red River froze up for the first time this century. Coast Guard cutters freed a dozen Lake Erie freighters stuck in 12-ft.-high windrows of ice, and on the frozen Mississippi River near Keokuk, Iowa, 30 towboats pushing about 430 grain barges are trapped until spring. In the shallow Gulf of Mexico bays from Galveston to Port Isabel, Texas, tens of thousands of fish (speckled trout and redfish) died in 38DEG water.

The damage to agriculture was more serious. In Texas, 3,500 growers of Valencia oranges and Ruby Red grapefruit are rushing to pick and process their fruit for juice. Their losses could total $50 million nonetheless, and the trees may be seriously damaged. Nowhere are the economic stakes bigger than in Florida, where 75% of U.S. citrus fruit is grown. It is believed that a quarter of the nearly ripe crop, worth about $250 million, was wrecked by temperatures as low as 16DEG. "It was just like Pearl Harbor," says Everett Fischer, general manager of Winter Garden Citrus Growers. "You wake up and--wham!--you've been bombed." Commodity speculators last week bid up the price of orange juice by 15%, and store prices are expected to rise accordingly. Florida produce from peppers to cucumbers and tomatoes was also devastated. Says Strawberry Grower Roy Parke: "Losses are hitting 100%--berries, bush and bloom. If there's ever been a disaster here, it's now."

In the North, the problem was livestock losses. Iowa Farmer Harold Herrig of La Motte (--25DEG) lost eleven cattle to the cold. Hogs and cattle likely to survive the freeze will do so only at the expense of weight gains, which could result in higher meat prices for consumers.

It was a bad week for plumbing: leaks damaged two dozen federal buildings in Washington, D.C., and broken pipes caused perhaps $200,000 in damage to the Ohio Supreme Court chambers. More than 700 water mains broke in Fort Worth, causing the system to hemorrhage water twice as fast as the city uses it. In New Orleans, upscale new Canal Place Mall was awash because of broken pipes, while city streets were flooded by rain. The Crown Plumbing Co. in Houston hired 150 workers, doubling its staff, to cope with 3,000 emergency calls a day during the four-day freeze.

Power outages were widespread, leaving homes dark and cold. In Oregon, some 27,000 customers were without power on Friday. Arkansas Power & Light Co. sent out workers with guns to blast ice off tree limbs that were threatening to topple onto electric lines. The cold in Washington, D.C., caused dozens of traffic lights to go haywire, each flashing "as if it had a mind of its own," according to a city engineer.

The cold was cruel as well as crazy. In two days Chicago had ten major fires, some started by attempts to unfreeze pipes with blowtorches; there were more big blazes than during any previous month of 1983. Handling fire hoses in --25DEG cold was a horrendous job. "You just turn to solid ice," said Chicago Fireman Donald Mikesh.

The cold was especially hard on the poor. In New York City, 16 people, many of them homeless, died from hypothermia over the long Christmas weekend. Detroit's Benjamin Ranson, 49, lived in a car and died in it, curled up between bucket seats. In Tipple Hill, W. Va., Takeisha and Stacey Craighead, ages seven and five, were killed when a coal-burning stove set fire to their flimsy house. Retiree George Toomer, 77, who lived alone in Akron (--14DEG), locked the house keys in his car and froze to death in his garage.

Even the strong succumbed. Tulane Senior Andrew Hillery and his friend Patrick Vizard, both 22 and experienced duck hunters, went into the Louisiana marshes bundled in thermal underwear and parkas. "They were frozen in water that had splashed into the boat from the winds. They had to be chipped out," says Hugh Lambert, Vizard's brother-in-law.

But scores were saved. On South Dakota's huge Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation, volunteers brought firewood to one isolated compound just in time: the elderly Indian women had begun to burn their clothing for heat. Jack Fourier, a local rancher, donated a frozen brahma bull to hungry Sioux 50 miles away, and used his chain saw to carve up the carcass. "In weather like this," said Fourier, "people got to pitch in for each other." In northern Indiana, people did just that. Paramedic Robert Hickman flagged down a freight train and highballed it 3 1/2 miles to pick up Kelly Braggs, 20, stranded in her rural home and suffering from a serious pituitary deficiency. The train then backed up 33 miles to Lafayette, " where Braggs was hospitalized.

For most Americans, the cold meant neither horror nor heroism.

Just annoyance: not a single taxi at Kansas City International Airport on Christmas Eve; 75 inmates at the Michigan State Prison in Jackson refusing to leave the mess hall because of cold cells. Yet as families huddled for the holidays, there were also moments of wonder. Jim Johnson, an undertaker in Parshall, N. Dak., was stunned one morning to see his thermometer reading -- 56DEG. "I got the kids up to look at it, because they may never see anything like it again."

--By Kurt Andersen.

Reported by Sandra Hinson/Orlando and Richard Zacks/Chicago, with other bureaus

With reporting by Sandra Hinson, Richard Zacks