Inside the Eye of Hurricane Cleo: August 1964

By Bob Davidsson
        Palm Beach County has weathered many destructive hurricanes in its history, but to "Baby Boomers" raised in the Palm Beaches during the 1960's, there is one tropical storm that left a lasting memory to all experiencing its fury - Hurricane Cleo.
        In August 1964, students basked in the final days of summer vacation before the beginning of a new school year. Their transistor radios were turned to WIRK or WQAM to hear the harsh bluesy melody in "House of the Rising Sun," the number one song in the country, or "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, a new upbeat tune shooting up the music charts on a bullet.
        With an exception of a few weather geeks, no one was concerned about a tropical depression forming off the Windward Islands. After all, Tony Glenn, the Atlantic Oil Company weather man on Channel 5, said the storm was more than 1,000 miles away.
        Many of the kids catching the last rays of summer sun on Lake Worth beach weren't even born when Hurricane King struck the Florida coast in 1950. Even the post-World War II "boomers" born before the arrival of the previous tropical storm were too young to remember it.
        It was an election year. While LBJ and Barry Goldwater argued about using "the bomb" to fight Communism in their 1964 presidential campaigns, local boomer kids went to the movies where they learned how to stop worrying about nuclear war by instead laughing at the witty satire in "Doctor Strangelove," showing at the Lake and Carefree theaters
        By Aug. 20, Hurricane Cleo formed and rapidly intensified. Two days later it crossed the island of Guadalupe as a Category 3 storm packing 115 mph winds. As Cleo passed the southern coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the storm reached its peak intensity as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 155 mph.
        Floridians began to take notice, and the staff of the "U.S. Weather Bureau" office in Miami was concerned. Yet, life continued in the Palm Beaches in its usual lazy off-season summer pace. Before the storm reached Florida, it would first have to cross the mountains of Cuba. Few storms survived that obstacle. Right?
        Hurricane Cleo slammed the southwestern peninsula of Haiti on Aug. 24, then weakened to a Category 1 storm as it crossed southern Cuba. For the first, but not the last time, Cleo demonstrated her ability to regain strength after encountering land masses.

Hurricane Cleo Targets Florida
        The storm entered the Florida Straits on Aug. 27 and immediately began to intensify. Hurricane preparations began in earnest in the Palm Beaches, as meteorologists predicted Cleo's future track and possible landfall in South Florida. The storm mystified most experts, taking an unusual route along the entire eastern coast of Florida from Miami to just south of Jacksonville.
        Cleo made landfall in Miami, and for nearly two days created a 20 to 35-mile wide path of destruction along the coastline before returning to sea north of St. Augustine. The storm intensified with sustained winds of 100 to 110 mph, with gusts of up to 135 mph, as it entered Dade County, then slowly weakened as it marched north.
        Many streets in Miami Beach were flooded by a combination of rain, high tides and storm surge. From Miami to Melbourne in Brevard County the frantic reports were the same - broken glass, interior building and street flooding, uprooted trees, beach erosion, overturned aircraft and boats, power failures, damaged traffic signals and agricultural loss.
        As Cleo entered Broward County, the popular "Storyland" children's theme park in Pompano Beach was destroyed and never reopened. For the first time in its history, the Fort Lauderdale News missed a publication date due to a loss of power to run its presses.
        As it approached Boca Raton, students at the new Florida Atlantic University (FAU) stayed home as the storm delayed the "Grand Opening" of the college for six days. The ceremony could not be held until power was restored and debris was cleared from the campus.
        Storm surge reached four to six feet above high tide along the east coast and its estuaries. Bryant Park in Lake Worth flooded, with the surge reaching as far west as Lakeside Drive. Sections of Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach also were impassible. Total rainfall in Stuart reached 9.37 inches in a 24-hour period.
        The eye of Hurricane Cleo followed State Road 7 (U.S. 441) through suburban Palm Beach County. The most powerful winds were east of the eye wall. Both the Lake Worth and Palm Beach piers were badly damaged by the storm. The Lake Worth pier was rebuilt, but the pier at the end of Worth Avenue never fully recovered.
        A tunnel leading from the Lake Worth Casino building, passing under the parking area and access road to the beach just north of the pier, was clogged with sand and debris. It was closed to public use after Cleo due to safety risks.
        Another landmark destroyed by Cleo was a mile-long one-way road fronting the beach east of A1A. The coastal road began at Lantana Beach and circled back to the highway in Manalapan. The only section remaining today is between the public beach and the Eau Palm Beach resort.
        At the height of the storm, the parking brakes of a Bluebird school bus at the Lake Worth Christian School failed. Neighbors peaking from behind their storm shutters were amazed to witness the force of the wind blowing a bus more than 100 feet across a parking lot.
        Two blocks to the east, the concession hut at Lake Worth's Sunset Ridge Park disintegrated under the pressure of the wind gusts. Wooden debris and supplies from the shed scattered across the park's baseball field.
        Two dozen fires were reported as Hurricane Cleo headed due north up the coastline. More than 1,200 office buildings and houses were heavily damaged or destroyed. The storm cut electrical power to 620,000 homes and businesses in southeast Florida.
        Cleo returned to sea on Aug. 28, but the next day made her second U.S. landfall at Savannah, Ga., as a tropical storm. Widespread flooding was caused by heavy rainfall and coastal storm surge in the Carolinas until the storm reentered the Atlantic on Sept. 1.
        Once free of the mainland, Cleo regained her hurricane strength Sept. 2 and threatened shipping and fishing boats along the east coast. The storm refused to die until it reached the hurricane graveyard east of Newfoundland, Canada.

Hurricane Cleo's Toll and Aftermath
        Hurricane Cleo claimed the lives of 156 people, mainly in Haiti and the Caribbean islands. A total of 13 Floridians were killed.
        Property damages from Hurricane Cleo totaled $200 million in the U.S. alone. In 1964, coinage was still made of silver, and the dollar was backed by a gold standard. Using today's inflated currency as a measure, damages are estimated at $2 billion. Palm Beach County sustained about $50 million in property loss and rebuilding costs.
        With a population of less than 300,000 in 1964, most county residents were spared the long lines for food, water and gasoline experienced as an aftermath of the three sister hurricanes of 2004-05 - Frances, Jeanne and Wilma. However, cleanup efforts after Cleo continued for weeks.
        President Lyndon B. Johnson declared southeast Florida a federal disaster area on Sept. 10. The 1964 citrus harvest along the Treasure Coast was nearly a total loss. Farmers and businesses needed help with their recovery. FEMA did not exist in the 1960's, but Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and U.S. Department of Agriculture assistance were available.
        Appalled by the scale of destruction along its eastern seaboard, some politicians began finger pointing and looking for scapegoats. Florida Sen. George Smathers demanded an investigation of the U.S. Weather Bureau for negligence in its forecasting and early warning to the news media.
        In a letter to Florida newspapers, he wrote, "It has been brought to my attention by many persons and news organizations that there was a lack of information and even some misinformation as to the course and velocity of the winds..."
        Florida news agencies and broadcasting stations came to the defense of Weather Bureau staff before and during the hurricane. No further action was taken by the Senate.
        Due to the historic magnitude of the hurricane, the name "Cleo" was retired by the National Weather Service from the NOAA list of future storms in 1968, and replaced in the rotation by the given name "Candy".
        The 1964 hurricane season had one final unpleasant surprise for Palm Beach County. On the night of Oct. 14, Hurricane Isbell crossed the Everglades from the Gulf of Mexico and struck the Palm Beaches from the west.
        The hurricane spawned several tornadoes. One of its twisters hit the coastal community of Briny Breezes, damaging or destroying 22 mobile homes. One man was killed before the storm entered the Atlantic.

NOTE: The author was a 10-year-old eyewitness of Hurricanes Cleo and Isbell in 1964. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
(c.) 2016