[Phoenix8]

Ahh memories.

I could share so many, like how our neighbor drove a county snow plow. He slid off the road late at night working and had to sleep on a strangers couch or he would have perished. How me and dad spent nearly the entire next day digging our 1/4 mile long driveway out by hand in drifts 4-5 feet deep.

Still to this day the only time the entire state of Indiana was issued a blizzard warning.

[grame]

We were right in the middle of this one. My M-I-L was living with us at the time and hubby and I left the 3 kids with her and walked 5 blocks to the closest grocery, a small produce store with a meat counter and some groceries. It was difficult to walk but we brought all we could carry.

We didn’t loose electricity and the roads were being plowed as the snow fell. I worked at KMART and we were in the middle of inventory. After the snow let up and the roads were passable Kmart sent people out to pick up employees who had no way to get there so inventory could be finished.

Our dealing with the blizzard didn’t end til the fall. 9 months later we added a bouncing baby boy to our family! Our Blizzard baby. And there were many whose families grew as well.

[rhinohunter]

It was a magical time to be a kid …

[daniel1212]

Remember it well.

On this day in 1978, the storm of the century paralyzed the entire state of Massachusetts. The Blizzard of '78 dropped between two and four feet of snow on the Bay State over the course of 32 hours. Ferocious winds created drifts as high as 15 feet. Along the coast, flood tides forced 10,000 people into emergency shelters. Inland, over 3,000 cars and 500 trucks were immobilized along an eight-mile stretch of Route 128. By the time it subsided, the storm had taken the lives of 29 Massachusetts citizens, destroyed 11,000 homes, and caused more than one billion dollars in damage. The Blizzard of '78 is also remembered for many acts of kindness, cooperation, and courage.

- https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/blizzard-paralyzes-massachusetts.html

[Liaison]

I was in CT in middle school. My dad had a CJ5 and for days was delivering food to shut ins and delivering medical staff to hospitals. His favorite story is driving a nurse to Hartford and she said the roads don’t look to bad. He slammed the breaks had he slid about a hundred feet with a 360 thrown in on black ice. They talked about other things on way to the hospital.
My dad’s cousins drove the town and county plow trucks on the main roads and rest of the fam were plowing out business in their private company trucks for close to 4 days straight to keep the drifts from building up.
Me, I played in the 20-30 foot snow drifts by the house building snow forts and having snowball fights. Sledding was awesome as we could bring out our flexible flyer sleds because of the packed snow and ice over our hill.
Bust snow ever.

[daniel1212]

Military equipment was flown into Boston to clear snow from the southbound lane of Route 128 between Highland Avenue and Great Plain Avenue in Needham following the Blizzard of 1978. John Blanding / The Boston Globe. - https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2018/02/06/woman-remembers-driving-on-route-128-during-blizzard-1978/

https://bdc2020.o0bc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/180119_BS_002-2-768x432.jpg?width=800

[bgill]

But, but this winter is the worst in history!

[COBOL2Java]

I was living in DC during that blizzard. A friend of mine had taken his wife to the hospital when she went into labor, and had to go home to get some things. Well, the blizzard hit after he got home. He was stuck.

He went out onto South Dakota Avenue looking for someone with a 4-wheel drive to help him. He held up a sign that said “Need to get to the hospital. Wife in labor”.

Someone picked him up, but not before a Washington Post photographer snapped a picture of him with his sign. Made it on to the next day’s edition.

[GreyFriar]

I missed it, as I was on a 3 year vacation in Germany’s Fulda Gap, courtesy of the American taxpayers.

[FrankRizzo890]

I lived in Nashville at the time (considering I was a child), and we were out of school for what felt like a month. We were out so long that we had to go to school on SATURDAY and later in the year that normal to get the required number of days in.

The local hill was EPIC for sledding! Very very few cars could make it up it as it was SOLID ICE from the “melt a little during the day, refreeze at night” cycles. Anyway, when it started to thaw, I remember sticking my hand down in a crack in the ice, and just BARELY being able to touch the road with the tip of my middle finger. (I was almost 12 years old at the time). That’s how thick the ice was on that hill.

[reed13k]

I was also in Indiana SW small little town of 800. I was 10 at the time.

Distinctly recall my dad opening the back door and seeing a wall of snow piled all the way till a few inches from the top.

Groups of men went door to door the next few days checking on everyone - always partnered up to make sure no one got lost.

After it settled down everyone helped dig out the downtown area and main roads. I was handed a snow shovel as were all the other boys, no questions asked, no complaints given - we knew what needed done.

I think I have clippings from the papers still, but not home to dig them up now. Seem to recall a number of truck drivers pulled over under the interstate overpasses, drifts closed them in and they died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

[redangus]

Stuck in an old farmhouse for two days with a frozen septic tank. Had to walk through 6-7-foot drifts and -50 windchills to feed the cows. Only got out because the guy who owned a local gravel pit decided to dig his way home with a huge front loader. Lucky for us he lived three houses down. Bought my first 4x4 after that. 45 years later I’ve never been without at least one in the family fleet. Live in town now with a generator, but I still own blizzard clothes just in case.

[Pelham]

This was the 1966 Blizzard that hit Washington DC. The picture is somewhere in Arlington, and considering how small Arlington County is it can't be far from my old neighborhood.

An inch of snow could cause trouble there and this storm dropped 3 feet all at once. A Washington Post driver had been out in it and simply abandoned his truck on our street and walked home. Everything came to a standstill for about three days.

This was my last snowfall before moving to Southern California. I'm still waiting for it to snow here but so far no such luck.

[P.O.E.]

Had to shovel a mountain of snow to get my car out and drive to work at the factory.
Got there on time.