COLD SNAP PLAGUES FLORIDA'S FARMERS.

Byline: Mireya Navarro The New York Times

Roy Parke is spending his nights watching thermometers in strawberry bushes and chipping ice from sprinkler heads to protect his crop, a $1 million business endangered by freezing weather that swept through Florida after delivering misery to much of the country.

Already, Parke figured, he had lost 30 percent of the strawberries on the ground - not a devastating blow unless the freeze continued, he said. More cold was predicted for Monday night.

"I'd like to get drunk, but I have to stay sober to watch it," said a sleepless Parke, owner of Parkesdale Farms in Plant City, near Tampa.

As the Arctic cold took its toll, Florida farmers rushed to pick or insulate their crops; in Louisiana, frozen pipes created a "plumber's nightmare," and in Oregon, National Guardsmen filled sandbags to help stop floods from a creek that froze and then melted.

In Florida, tourists bundled up and shelters opened to the homeless as temperatures dipped to more than 20 degrees below normal.

On Lincoln Road, a pedestrian mall of shops and restaurants in Miami Beach, people normally found eating at outdoor tables walked at a brisk pace wrapped in heavy coats.

"I came to escape the cold of New York," said Francisco Hernandez, a postal worker from Queens County. "But there's not much difference."

The coldest places in Florida, Crestview and Milton in the north, registered 12 degrees on Sunday night. Other cities reported record lows overnight, including Tampa with 25 degrees, Orlando with 26 and Miami Beach with 37.

The state braced for more of the same on Monday night.

"We're looking again at another potentially damaging freeze," said Mike Rucker, a meteorologist and spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

Officials of the Florida Department of Agriculture said it was too early to estimate crop damage or to predict the effect on consumer prices. But preliminary reports indicated significant losses to some winter fruits and vegetables, they said. About half of the February strawberry crop, the largest of the season, could be lost already, officials said. Citrus groves, a $1.2 billion industry in Florida, were also affected.

"We know we will have some fruit damage, which will reduce orange juice yields" said Bob Blankenship, a spokesman for the department. "This is a serious freeze, and will probably be our most serious in the central part of the state."

Growers said the cold snap, the third since Thanksgiving, did not compare to a 1989 freeze that not only damaged the produce but also wiped out the trees. The loss decimated agriculture, Florida's second largest industry after tourism.

Although the citrus trees this time are expected to bloom again, the cold is a cause of concern because half the crop remains unpicked. Growers on Monday sprayed the trunks of the trees with water to provide an insulating coat of ice against winds and lower temperatures, while others harvested what fruit they could.

In Plant City, where most strawberries in the state are grown, Parke said he started his sprinklers to protect the fruit when temperatures dropped to the low 30s. He and 18 workers took shifts, patrolling 140 acres in Jeeps and trucks and make sure sprinklers did not clog up.

While the final toll was not expected to be known until later this week, Chip Hinton, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, said some growers feared they would lose a substantial market share to California, the nation's largest strawberry producer.