Blizzard of 1978

[jmc]

On the recent anniversary of Indiana's worst blizzard (and probably other Midwest states), our local paper just dredged up the big stories/pictures from back then, along with readers' more recent accounts of their predicaments at the time. In a state where 6" of snow is a big deal, when it's measured in feet, and winds over 50mph, we were flattened for days.

There were some interesting stories from those readers. Frozen fuel oil lines, coal strike, power lines down. Families huddled at home under quilts while their first responder family members were out helping others. Local Ford dealer loaning police brand new 4x4's. The few snowmobiles in the southern half of Indiana used for emergencies, like women going into labor. Local paper could only deliver 1000 copies out of 26,000 circulation so the editor read the news to everyone over the radio.

Thought it might be interesting to hear from TBN members' who have their own stories.

 

[KennyG]

I was living in the Chicago area at the time. My garage opened onto the alley and I was in the middle of the block, so I had a 1/2 block of 4 foot deep snow in each direction. I was snowbound for a full month before I was able to get out with chains. (I cleared my part of the alley but no one else seemed interested in shoveling and I didn't have time to do the whole alley.) I was able to get to work via public transportation, but the usual 45 minute commute often took 2 hours in the morning. I eventually just started working until about 9 at night after trying to leave at 5 and taking almost 4 hours to get home. Thinking back, it makes Covid seem like a vacation.

 

[MoKelly]

I lived in St. Louis. This place shuts down if there is any snow on the road. We got over 24 inches.

I had just recently started a new job out of college. I didn’t want to miss work. I got up very early and got the driveway cleared. I was already exhausted and it was 6am!

Got dressed and left. I was driving a Ford Pinto - not exactly known as a snow machine.
Drove 1/2 block and got stuck. Walked home, got shovel, dug out and returned home.

Turned out no one went to the office that day —- or the next day!

Just youthful stupidity.

MoKelly

 

[rademamj1]

Yes I remember very clearly that massive storm. I was in Buffalo, NY and driving home from a ski trip on the I-90 at 4pm when the Blizzard of 1978 hit. OMG. Temperatures dropped from 26F to -18F in just a half hour, with lake effect winds up to 50 mph and lake effect snow falling at 10inchs per hour. By 5:00pm it was severe whiteout conditions and no vehicles were moving anywhere. You could not even see the front of your car. I parked under an overpass and crawled to the nearest hotel about 7pm, and it was already sold out, and so i camped out in their lobby for 3 days. By 12pm midnight, word came that many cars on the Interstate I-90 had people trapped in them, and these were mostly rush hour workers coming home from the office and not dressed warm enough for the frigid cold. A NY StateTrooper asked for volunteers to go check cars and bring anybody in them to the hotel. Well the 3 feet of snow accumulated had drifted in some areas up to 8 feet and buried many vehicles. We dug some out, and found nobody inside. We dug some out and helped the people to the hotel. We dug some out and found dead people. The State Trooper said to leave them.

Later the National Guard was activated by President Jimmy Carter, and they towed over three thousand vehicles stuck along the Interstate to clear for the plows. The National Guard managed to loose 500+ cars by parking them in a makeshift parking area and forgetting to tell anyone where the location was. About a year later the 500+ cars were finally found.

 

[civilian]

We missed that storm. We just graduated from college and moved out to Long Beach CA for a new job. We left northern Michigan with a van full of stuff. We found a house to rent and asked for our furniture sent out from my parent's home. The movers got our furniture and it got as far as southern Michigan and there it was stuck in the storm. It finally arrived. Jon

 

[workinonit]

Ours was earlier in the 70s. I don't remember exactly what year. Imagine 2 to 3 feet of snow in SC. We were out of school for 2 or 3 weeks. Dad had a 48 Willys Jeep. We had a blast.

 

[Tinhack]

I had just taken a new job at the Cleveland Clinic and was living east of there in Euclid. I think it was called Georgetown of the Highlands. That was my first winter up there and I lived high on a hill. If I could make it down the hill to Euclid Ave. I could take that into Cleveland and work. That was also my first exposure to what they called "The Snow Belt". A few years later I moved out to Mentor--Further east. That was even deeper into the snow belt. But wait, it gets worse. :laughing: About six years later, I moved out to Concord Township further east. Average snowfall out there was 120" a year.

I am blessed to be back in Texas. :dance1:

 

[MossRoad]

We had 36" in South Bend. Drifts covered houses. My friends and I went out after it ended to walk around. I remember all of us taking turns sitting down on a street sign that was 12' up in the air!

We lived back in the woods, my dad knew the storm was coming, so we moved our cars up to my grandma's house next door, as she had a short driveway. We shoveled a path from our house to her house(she was in Florida for the winter), then a path out to the street 1 shovel wide. All of the neighbors did the same and we soon had a rat maze in the neighborhood to get to all the houses. It took my dad and I about 3 days to shovel my grandma's driveway working a few hours at a time. It was 8 days before the city finally got a front end loader down our street.

My dad shoveled off the roof, fearing a collapse. After he finished shoveling the roof, he just stepped off onto the pile of snow, as it was as tall as the overhangs.

My friends and I took a sled out to the main road that had been cleared, and hitched it to the back of a city smudge pot truck. The driver pulled us down to the grocery store a couple miles away. We bought some milk and snacks and a few things for our moms, and headed home. A city bus had stopped, so I grabbed the bumper and it pulled me most of the way home, using my shoes for skis. We used to call that "hopping cars".

It was the first time I saw wild deer. They came up the river from Michigan and about 20 of them spent a few weeks in the park across the lake from us scratching down to the grass and nibbling all the branches.

I recall a worker at the airport was killed when while he was probing for buried cars in the airport entrance, a front end loader backed over him.

For the most part, it was just a lot of fun for us kids. We were all 16-18 years old and it was a big adventure when we weren't shoveling snow.

I frequently drive through that area of town where I grew up and look at the houses, and remember the drifts going from roof peak to roof peak of tri-level houses, and I just shake my head. There's never been anything close to that storm here in my almost 60 years.

Living in lake effect snow country, we get large snows like that every so often, but you drive 20 miles and its gone. This stuff was everywhere. And it wasn't a local event. It was states wide. That was what made it so amazing.

 

[Halftrack]

We had just gotten out of the dairy business but still had beef cattle in the barnyard. Had to shovel the bunk feeders out and when the cattle heard the silo unloader going, they waded out and ate. Drifts were as high as the eaves on the house and garage and you could almost walk up the drifts to eave height, it was packed so hard. I had an International Scout (GOD'S first SUV) and tried to get down the road and could drive up the windward side of the drifts but sank on the leeward side. Lots of digging later and put it back in the shed.

We had a D-4 Cat dozer at a shed 3/4 of a mile away, so I walked there hoping but guessing it would not start. Walking was not bad because the snow was packed enough it was easier than walking on sand. Amazingly, after overdosing with ether, the cat started and I headed for the main road. Usually you just drop the blade and the snow would flow off to each side. NOT this stuff. You had to move it like moving clay. Take 6" and move it to the side and then another 6" the other way. Slow going and cold. Dad took over when I got near the house. There was a 10 ft deep drift west of the house and ended up using the TLB to dig it out and move the snow. For the most part front end loaders were used to clear the roads in our county. Snow plows were useless and usually stuck.

 

[stuckmotor]

Ours was earlier in the 70s. I don't remember exactly what year. Imagine 2 to 3 feet of snow in SC. We were out of school for 2 or 3 weeks. Dad had a 48 Willys Jeep. We had a blast.

We had some good ones, for SC in the early 70's. Northern states wouldn't even have noticed.

 

[BravoXray]

I worked at the family construction company back then, and we had a contract for snow removal at Miles Laboratories in Elkhart. We had to keep the plant cleared out so trucks bringing in supplies for the citric acid plant could get in and out. None of us could get out to get to the shop to get equipment, except for one guy that took our big Hough H90C loader home to clean out his drive, He was able to plow his way to a few of our houses so we could get to the shop and over to Miles Labs. We finally got there around 3:00PM and had to run the loader down some of the streets so a couple of trucks could get in. The plant was within a couple of hours of shutting down when the arrived. We were told later that if the citric acid plant shut down, it would cost nearly a million dollars to get it started up again. Don't know if that's true, but that's what a company rep told us. We worked there for three days straight getting everything cleared out, and ended up having to haul snow down to the river and dump it when we ran out of space to pile it on Miles' property.
At my house, which has a walk-out basement in the back, snow was drifted up to the eaves, completely filling the back porch. In front, it was drifted so high we couldn't see out of the front picture window for a couple weeks, and if I hadn't been plowed out by the guy that took the loader home, it would have take a lot of shoveling to get my truck or car out.

 

[oosik]

At that time we were firmly planted in SE Alaska. Seldom got news about ANYTHING happening in the lower 48( the outside ). The only blizzard I remember - the winter of 1948-1949 in NE WA state. Cold down to -20F and winds that blew snow into drifts half as high as the telephone poles. I was just a kid but I can still remember how worried my folks were. No power and we had only our big old fireplace to heat the entire house. Everybody and everything survived. But I remember it as a very "exciting" time.

 

[TCowner]

These were incredible storms. One has to wonder how the local television weather teams would respond if one of these monster snowstorms was heading in our direction. Right now, if the forecast suggests a 2-3 inch snow, its the lead story for the 6 o'clock news. If there is hint of snowfall amounts of 6" then it is reported as "dangerous" winter storm. All schools are closed ahead of the storm, drivers are coached to have their emergency supply kit in their cars and we are told to hunker down and to do what we can to survive. And this takes place in Minnesota, not Texas. And its not that unusual for the National Weather Service to completely miss the forecast and we get an inch of accumulation and half of the state of Minnesota is home looking out the window preparing for the Armageddon.

I can't imagine in 2021 if a 24" snow storm with 50 mph winds was heading to Minnesota how the local forecasters would respond. But it would be entertaining.

 

[polo1665]

I was 13 years old and living on the west coast of Michigan (snow belt area). It was great times if you were a kid. I can remember tunneling through the snowbanks and drifts. The snow along the roads was so high that I can remember cars putting those bicycle flags on their back bumpers so you could see them backing out of the driveway. Pretty sure we only missed one day of school that year though, and it may have been the only snow day that we had through my entire school career in West Michigan. The plows did a great job of clearing roads, and we lived in a fairly small community.

 

[KennyG]

This made me go back and look up a couple of the pictures.

 

[dodge man]

I also grew up in the far west burbs of Chicago, I would have been 16 years old. I was shoveling snow for our church that winter. I have a picture of myself and mom standing in a drift that was over my head, probably about 7 feet high. I’m a little over 6 feet tall but my mom was about 5 foot nothing. It wasn’t just the one storm either, but we had several other snowfalls that winter. You couldn’t see to pull out from intersections and driveways.

 

[oosik]

And now, here I am - one and a half inches of snow and then it rains. I take a short drive in the Taco Wagon and get "flash weather warnings" on the digital display screen. Wind warning and snow - "30mph winds and one inch of snow" - in the adjoining county. Folks think they have it tough now.

The whole world would shut down if we had a REAL blizzard. Weather announcers on TV would be using megaphones to express themselves.

 

[PILOON]

Might have been same storm that hit Montreal area.

I had a snow sled and went for essentials and had decided to ride the crests of the snow drifts.
I'd hear a twang from time to time and suddenly realized it was vehicle antennas that I was clipping.

A local reporter was ordered to take photos for the daily paper and he requested a sled ride to the commuter train station as that was the only way he'd get to press.
I complied and they posted my sled with me loaded with 'essential supplies'.
Besides milk and bread I was posed with a case of 24's on my shoulder on the front page.

They cleared our street with a Cat D7, it was that bad.
Snow sleds were running down main street of Montreal and it took 3 days to get traffic back to a semblance of normal.

Highway clearing was very slow as each snow drift had to be probed to determine if it was snow or a buried car.

 

[MossRoad]

One of the things I remember most was this family out shoveling snow. They were kinda a pesky family. Stay off our lawn-types. Snow was up to the eaves on their house, and sloped out to the street, where it was still over 3' deep. You could see where they opened the garage door and climbed out over the drift. The dad is up on the pile so his knees are about roof height to the house. His kid, about 14 yers old, is further down the sloping snow. The kid has this massive old square steel snow shovel, and he's jamming it up and down straight into the snow, and you hear BANG! BANG! BANG! each time he slams it down. After about 5-6 of these loud BANGS! he says to his father, "I think I found the car." and he slams the shovel up and down a few more times BANG! BANG! BANG! and the dad starts screaming at him "STOP! STOP!" and the kid keeps slamming it with the shovel. "It's right here!" Boy was he proud of that. BANG! BANG! right on the roof of the car with that steel shovel.

My friends and I were laughing so hard. That guy was screaming STOP! :laughing:

Don't remember what ever happened after that. The dad kinda gave us the stink eye, so we got outta there. :laughing: