Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Blizzard of ‘78
It was the most catastrophic storm to hit Massachusetts in over 200 years. And I was caught smack-dab in the middle of it.
To provide a little background, my husband and I moved to MA in 1977. I grew up in California, so although I could visit snow in the mountains, I’d never lived in a snowy locale.
On this particular day, February 5, 1978, I headed to work down Route 9 from Framingham, the sun shining, expecting a routine day at the savings bank I worked at in Chestnut Hill. Except for a couple of turns early in my journey, it was a straight shot to work. That would be a great benefit to me on my drive home.
The snow began falling in the afternoon. We had no idea what was coming. By the time I left work, the snow had coated everything. I had never driven in a blizzard; you could say that my naivete nearly killed me.
As I turned onto Route 9, there were still cars on the road. But the visibility was nearly down to zero. I figured, hey, I’ll just take my time and follow the lane lines. It wasn’t too long until I realized that the lane lines had disappeared and so had my visibility. I was afraid to pull over because I couldn’t see cars behind me or locate the side of the road. Now and then I’d see car brake lights which told me I was still on the correct side of the road. So I just kept going.
Two hours and one flat tire later (the ride normally took 35 minutes) I miraculously found my driveway. I have no idea how I got there. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
My husband’s company let employees go home early. He took the bus from Boston to a shopping center near our home where he picked up his car. I had no way to tell him I was on my way, although it would have made no difference. I was on my own.
We went to bed early assuming from the news that everything would be shut down the next day. The authorities hadn’t yet declared a bank holiday but the decision was imminent. So we slept in. Imagine my surprise when the bank president called early in the morning to ask if I could open up our branch because the branch manager hadn’t made it home. It’s a good thing I was half asleep because I don’t remember my response but I doubt that our Code of Conduct would allow me to include it here. The bank holiday was declared shortly thereafter.
Highlights of the week ahead:
Everything was shut down for a week, including driving on local roads.
We decided to walk to the local mini-mart, knowing the shelves would probably be empty. They were.
We saw a front-end loader from the city clearing our own street. My husband and our neighbor bribed, er, paid him to clear out our driveways. We had no snow thrower at the time, so we would have needed weeks to move the snow.
How bad was it? Boston received 27.1 inches, which was a record at the time. (We had at least 5-8” more in the suburbs.) The storm killed approximately 100 people in the Northeast and injured around 4,500.
Did I mention that we had forest fires in Orange County when we left CA for MA? And when we left MA, we moved to Parker, CO, in 1980. In 1982, we had the Denver blizzard:
The official tally by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was 23.8 inches. Some areas received a good deal more, closer to 29 inches. Does it really matter how much? Life in the city was seriously disrupted. Roads were impassable. No one could get to work. Those who were at work didn’t make it home.
Fortunately, we were at home that day. No sweat.
Now we live in central Florida. We only get hurricanes and tornadoes here.
Published in General
That’s amazing, Percival. Major snowstorms back then had to be more devastating than we can imagine.
The little black blob in my arms (yes, that’s me) was our beloved dog Muffin, a small cockapoo. We kept an eye on her every time she went outside–we were afraid she’d fall into a snowdrift!
I was 12 at the time. I remember going back up to Cape Cod that summer and seeing that half of the parking lot was gone at Nauset Light Beach, the entire parking lot at Coast Guard beach was gone, and the Outermost House had floated away.
The ’78 storm hit the “South Shore” particularly hard. I’d moved on from MA by that time but recall returning to Scituate later (where we had a summer home), and realizing that many, many longstanding houses simply were gone. Susan’s link has a picture of the waves at Minot Light in Scituate, and this article presents an overview of the devastation. It’s one thing to have to remove 30 in. of snow inland. It’s quite another to have your house disappear.
Ooh, the worst thing we ever did was move high schoolers…it was bad, bad. But–Dad earned the money, and when Dad’s job said “Time to move to this new base” that is what we did. But, even now (25 years later) it is the reason why both of those daughters have created the lives they live: it means they’ll never have to move! (We had five kids, and lived in three different states, and also moved within the state in one of them–but moving the two girls from their high school –junior and senior year–was the worst. I know.
I was living in Cambridge during the 1978 blizzard. Since cars were banned from the streets for about a week, I skied everywhere. I had a work-related trip to Colorado scheduled for that week that had to be postponed because Logan was closed.
The funniest part was that the county or the city (maybe both) announced that their snow removal budget for the year was blown. Then again, they seemed to say that every year.
This is a photo of my home town in a normal winter. This photo is from sometime in the last four or five years.
The other side of that snowbank is the other two lanes of the main street that goes through the little town. We never missed a SINGLE DAY of school due to bad weather when I was growing up there on my farm. I lived seven miles south of town–just keep driving south on that road you see and you’ll pass by my family’s farm.
It was a narrow valley, and didn’t get much wind. We got LOTS of snow, but it just fell down, and didn’t drift much. So the snowplow guys would be out there pushing and clearing and by school bus time, there wouldn’t be any problem in gathering up all the children and bringing them to town to school.
It was ridiculous. I didn’t have snow days until I was an adult, teaching school in Southern Maryland. Any little bit of snow was a delayed start, and a few inches meant no school at all.
But, the difference in Western Wyoming and Southern Maryland was critical. We knew we would get snow every winter in Wyoming. It would start the end of September and would finally melt in early May. Everyone had chains and snow tires, and boots and coats and hats and shovels. The snow just fell–it didn’t blow all over and drift. Also, the snow would come in a series of storms–not all eight feet at once. The snow would fall, and accumulate through the winter–lots of snow. Another factor was that the roads were straight, and if not paved, then they were graveled. But there weren’t a lot of twists and turns.
In Southern Maryland, we rarely got snow. This area was south of Washington D.C. about 60 miles. Either it would just rain a lot, or if the jet stream dipped down, then that moisture was instantly turned into snow that could result in two feet of snow in a couple of hours. Those roads were cut through the forest, and were all twisty and turning, and sometimes blocked by fallen trees or limbs that couldn’t withstand the weight of the sudden snow. So, I completely understand how we’d have to just sit tight and not go to school.
The first winter we moved there, from Southern California, (with the unhappy high school daughters) we ended up missing ten days of school due to a blizzard on a Sunday, and another one the following Friday. It was ridiculous. It took so long to clear off all of that snow and broken trees. (It was around 1997-98 I think.)
I must have experienced the blizzard of ‘78 when I was at college in northwestern PA. But I did not have to drive or shovel so it made no impression on me at all. Besides it snowed all the time.
I do remember the blizzard of February 11 1983. Spent the day packing and cleaning to prepare for our move out of Pittsburgh the next morning. We were just about to go to bed when we got the weather forecast and drove all night instead! Good decision, we outran it, and it was one for the record books. But I always felt cheated out of my last night in Pittsburgh.
All the scary snow driving stories do make hurricanes look better.
How cool was that! We had downhill skis, but I don’t think those would have worked. Or that I could have maneuvered them!
A close friend of mine moved from the Rochester NY area to Chicago in 1978, thinking he had left the “lake effect” of upstate NY and all the snow it generated behind. (Heh. Heh.)
But we folks in Chicago got walloped just the same. From Chicago Magazine:
Over Saturday and Sunday, January 13th and 14th, ’79 some 20 inches of snow fell, causing widespread public transportation delays. On the 15th, the Tribune reported that “most bus routes were being served, although with delays, but major gaps persisted in rapid transit lines.”
The Skokie Swift shut down; the Congress line stopped at Racine; the Lake-Dan Ryan ceased serving Oak Park. Expressways were running, but with exceptions. On the 16th, the Tribune editorial board was in relatively high spirits:
The one cheering element in all the grimness is that most people are doing the best they can, and their best is often very good indeed.
####
One of the metaphysical aspects of this winter storm was that one Mayor Bilandic was attempting to win the Chicago mayoral primary. Chicagoans would be going to the polls in early spring. It was widely assumed that since Bilandic was knee deep into the Dem party’s corrupt political connections, he would easily win.
But Bilandic had not counted on Jane Byrne or on God.
Byrne was relatively unknown, with about her only claim to fame being she had been friends with Jackie and JFK. Her issues were her desire to smack down the City With Big Shoulders’ corruption, and her decision to focus on the piss poor job of snow removal Bilandic was blamed for.
Not only did snow not get removed under his direction, but he paid a former deputy mayor and personal friend, Sain, some $ 90,000 to develop a “snow removal plan.” This plan consisted mainly of maps showing various streets in Chicago neighborhoods, available to most people for $ 1.25 each.
Hard hitting political reporter, Mike Royko, uncovered this cozy arrangement between the mayor and his friend. It also came out that another $ 240,000 plus worth of contracts had been signed by Bilandic with Mr Sain.
The election was held at a moment in late March or early April. Normally the sun would have been out, birds of spring would have been singing, and people would have been putting the woes of Winters Past behind them.
God or fate decided otherwise. A few days before the Primary Election, the snow fell. And fell, and fell again. Although not as massive a snow storm as the Jan blizzard, it was a reminder – Bilandic can’t get the city to work right, no matter how much money he shoveled off to his friend Mr Sain.
Once again Chicago snow removal efforts failed. Suddenly Jane Byrne, an outsider in the gruesome world of politics, was given a shot at being the new mayor. Voters shoveled their votes to Jane and she toppled the long standing Chicago establishment of Democrat cronyism.
Thank you, Lord!
We figured when we moved to FL that every place has its nasty weather. Fortunately we have not had a direct hit from a hurricane–just missed us–but the roaring winds scared me to death. The key for a snowstorm is try not to drive anywhere!
So there is justice in politics!!
I remember that plan! Do you know what it was?
I never would have thought of that.
The Civic Center collapsed 18 Jan, 1978. The blizzard was 5 February through 7 February, 1978.
Another thing about Southern Maryland was that we experienced a tornado a couple of times, and once, a hurricane came up the Chesapeake Bay! That roaring wind was terrifying!
I used to say this:
I’d rather live in California. People would say, “But what about the earthquakes!!??”
My reply: Well, I’ve been through a tornado here in Maryland, and it was terrifying! Roofs blowing around, and trees torn up! We had to hide in the hallways of our school while it passed over.
Then, we had a hurricane! That was days and days of rain and wind that bent the trees over! We lost our power, and couldn’t go out to the store, and our yard flooded.
But — here’s an earthquake in SoCal: nice weather, nice weather, nice weather—one and a half minutes of terror and shaking—nice weather, nice weather, nice weather, etc. etc.
And I experienced at least four big earthquakes in the twenty years we lived there. Luckily, our house didn’t fall down. But! The weather was nice!
Well in all fairness to your working brain, Percival, if someone had dangled 90 K in front of you, I bet you could have done as well!
27 inches?
Yeah, whatever.
http://ricochet.com/300257/archives/december-series-snow-dec-11-snowvember/
Missed that entirely, but I do remember seeing t-shirts in Kentucky with the words “I Survived Winter: 74/75”. Worst I experienced in 34 years there.
Try that with a West Highland Terrier. Happily the snow was not particularly deep where Mrs Rodin and I introduced the Westie to this particular form of water.
In the case of New York City, it was why all communications lines after 1888 were put underground in conduits in all but the outlying areas of the city, and was the driving force towards the construction of the city’s subway system, which eventually replaced most of the elevated lines in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. People in just 10-15 years had gotten used to the new-fangled communications and transportation services, and didn’t want to lose them (just as people in 2020 would freak out if some major snowstorm knocked out cellphone and internet services for an extended period).
I was in Denver for the December 1982 blizzard. It was actually on the 24th. Talk about a white Christmas! I was employed at a hospital but was off that Christmas and able to enjoy watching 24 inches come down in 24 hours. My 30 minute commute took an hour and a half for the next two weeks.
But in March 2003 we got 3 feet! Couldn’t believe the forecasts several days out, three feet of snow are coming! But they were right. Heavy wet spring snow, too. The roof of our local Walgreens fell in. But also because it was spring, it went away fast. A few days later it was mostly gone.
My guess is that was during the big snow we had 2 or 3 weeks prior to the blizzard. That one dumped about 20 inches where I lived outside of Boston.
Thereby bringing professional hockey to Springfield MA from Hartford in the form of the World Hockey Association’s New England Whalers, who begat the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers who begat the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.
Excellent execution of Army vehicle rollover drill!
This great snow story is part of our Group Writing Series under the January 2020 Group Writing Theme: Winter of Our Discontent. Share your tale of winter, discontent, content, or maybe tell us a tale of someone done wrong by an author or film maker. There are plenty of dates still available. Our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits.
Interested in Group Writing topics that came before? See the handy compendium of monthly themes. Check out links in the Group Writing Group. You can also join the group to get a notification when a new monthly theme is posted.
That Bunch of Jerks!
Now it’s “nice weather, nice weather, nice weather—new outrageous law—nice weather, nice weather, nice weather” . . .
My sentiments exactly!! Lived in CA most of my life!! I’ll take an earthquake any day. Except the traffic nowadays is a nightmare.
This is such a great way to bond on Ricochet–sharing our nightmare weather stories! And learning that some of us were neighbors at the time of a particular storm. I just love it! And I’m loving the stories. Is that the right observation to make over national disasters? Hm.m.m.m.m…..