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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 16°. "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 (—25°) 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 —25° 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 (—14°), locked the house keys in his car and froze to death in his garage.