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It was the
When we moved to Ma (eventually not far from Framingham) in the late 80’s, that all I heard about – the Blizzard of ’78. Then one afternoon it started snowing – they let people out early again from work, just like then. My husband picked me up (we both worked in Needham) and lived in Stoughton on the South Shore. The drive took 45 minutes on the back roads. That drive took almost from what I remember, about 6 hours. It was gridlock and the snow was getting very deep. No one was prepared. It was a “nightmeaa!”. I don’t miss those blizzards and like Susan, am also in FL. The ice, the snow plows pushing more snow back into a shoveled driveway, the shoveling with a bad back – the heating bills! Sometimes it was late spring before it all melted! The forsythia and daffodils were a welcome sight!!
I was in central Ohio, the snow was not as deep, but I was working mostly outside that day. Bagging groceries, loading up cars, and worst of all retrieving shopping carts. I had only had a driver’s license for a month and a half or so, and that storm was the beginning of about six weeks of below freezing temps. Back then, they didn’t plow residential areas, so there was ten inches of snow in the streets that whole time, so cold it was like sand. That’s when I learned to drive in snow.
So you were a teen-ager, huh! Let me imagine your doing spins and figure eights in the car . . .
78? How about the Blizzard of ’66? Drifts were covering entire two-story houses. All you whippersnappers and ’78.
How sweet? Being called a whippersnapper at my age? Cool!
Thought you’d appreciate it. But you were probably still in California in 66.
Yeah definitely, but mostly just doing the Tokyo Drift around corners.
Thanks for this post. I was nine at the time. We lived in Rocky Hill outside of Hartford.
When you’re nine you think everything is the biggest, the coldest, the best, the worst. I remembered this winter being terrible. There was snow to the top of our roof! (We lived at the bottom of a hill.) My little brother disappeared in the snow when he got out of the car! (I’ve since heard that same story happening to others with a not at all comical ending.) We didn’t have outside recess for months! We got out of school the week before the Fourth of July! (True.) My mother was a nurse and all the roads were closed so a snowplow came and picked her up and she didn’t come home for days. (Fortunately Dad was a golf pro and didn’t work in the winter.)
Over the years I dismissed a lot of it as the experience of a nine year old. Then on the 30th anniversary there were news stories about this storm. In Arizona! I saw the pictures and read the stories and heard about the deaths.
It was definitely a storm to remember.
And yes, I remember the Civic Center collapsing.
Curiously enough we moved to Phoenix, Arizona that next August.
We could talk about heat waves killing people in the north. We don’t get a heat wave and have old people die.
That’s because they died young of fire ants.
And killer bee attacks.
Blood sucked completely out by skeeters.
Blizzard of ’66 aftermath in Syrcause. Since Lake Ontario is so deep it almost never freezes over, the wind picking up moisture from the lake can create some hellacious snowfalls (which is the same thing that created that freaky situation in Buffalo a few years ago, when the winds off of not-yet-frozen Lake Erie dumped 6 1/2 feet of late fall snow on the south side of town, while the north side, where the winds only blew across the Niagara River, barely got 4-6 inches on the ground).
This had to be the very worst part!!! Your poor teacher! Actually I’m glad that you and your family came through it okay. It’s not often that our recollections from childhood match up with our adult selves!
And nine months later a friend of mine was born in Syracuse. Coincidence? I think not.
I’ve been wondering about the 1960s. I remember having the entire month of January off from school one year–it could have been 1966. Between midyears and the nonstop snowstorms, the town I grew up in north of Boston was completely shut down. I remember snow banks taller than I was.
And much more recently, about ten years ago, my son went to the University of Montana, and he brought his skis with him, of course. :-) That year, Missoula had almost no snow and we on Cape Cod got a whopping 108 inches. I sent my son a silly graphic I made up: Ski Cape Cod!
The thing the climate change hysterics don’t understand is that the climate is always changing. One would think that people who believed ardently in evolution and who study the changes in biology and geology over million-year periods would realize that before the rest of us. :-) Change is a fact of earth life. :-) It’s all about the earthquakes and volcanoes, not the lawnmowers. :-)
During our time in Rochester NY we learned that snows that started in the middle of the day combined with employers and schools letting out early created the worst combination. The early release put lots of cars on the road that would get stuck and prevent the snowplows from clearing the streets.
One of the few times I didn’t get to work was when we got a faster-than-expected snowfall (about 3 – 4 inches per hour, eventually totaling 18 inches) during the morning commute time. I and others started for work. Many got stuck. I saw that people were getting stuck, so I turned around and headed home, made it to and up my street, and then got stuck trying to get back into my driveway. Having so many cars stuck in the road made clearing the roads of snow much more difficult than normal.
I know, right? Oh wait, there was more? I’ll let you continue…
Yup, I remember it well. My place of employment was at the Computer Center for the old City National Bank and Trust in Columbus, Ohio. As I recall, when I drove to work that morning (about 0700H) the sky was a really weird, almost yellow, color and their was just a little snow falling. At about 0830H the fun really started with gale force winds and whipping snow. At about 1000H, management told us that we could go home. Although my apartment was only about a mile from the computer center, it took me nearly an hour to get there. By about 1600H that afternoon, everyone in Columbus realized that we were in deep…snow. My car, a 1976 Gremlin, was frozen to the ground for two weeks; wouldn’t even budge. The Ohio National Guard was mobilized and threw hay down to cattle who were totally immobilized by the snow (only time I can remember that happening).
It took Columbus weeks to dig out. The main drag in Columbus (normally 4 lanes) was two lane well into March. The muffler companies were doing making a fortune because of the deep ice ruts.
I could tell a thousand stories but my bottom line was that this was no way to live. I called a headhunter and was in sunny Dixie by May. I didn’t move back to the Columbus area until I was safely retired in 2010.
Ah, fun times!