In December 1976 Lake Erie froze over the earliest on record. a lot of lite snow built up on the lake ice over the next month. Then around the middle end/of January 1977 a blizzard hit. We had 75 MPH winds. In Orchard Park we got over 3’ of snow. Schools were all closed for a week. I was 14 at the time. The drifts were huge because of the wind. It blew all that snow off the lake east towards Buffalo and the south suburbs.
They asked anyone with a snowmobile to report to their local fire stations. A couple of my buddies delivered food to elderly people. A lot of the roads were impassable. Even the main roads. I remember being on the back of a buddies snowmobile going down the main north/south road in town. We hit a bump. I looked back and we had driven right over a stuck car.
A couple months after that we had an ice storm in March. everyone lost power. Broken trees/limbs down everywhere. Again, another week of no school. I think we had to go to school until almost July that year to make up for all the snow/ice days.
Mrs Vader was 12 at the time and it caused her family to relocate from williamsville to northern VA the next summer
I was in my 20’s for that and by the grace of God, did not go into work that day because the trip home Thursday night was so bad that I decided not to go in but take a vacation day (which I was allowed to do. We had a few call in days we could use a couple times a year.)
My dad went in and it hit just seconds after he walked in the building. He was stuck at work all weekend.
Too funny! Of course the owner might not have thought so.
That year, and the year after we had unusually large snowfalls for us here in Central Kentucky, ~24", and like you, we had huge snow drifts.
There was a tragedy one of those years: a 6-year-old boy went out to play in the snow and after a while his mother thought it was time for him to come back in, but when she went out, she couldn't find him. A big search ensued with cops, firemen, and volunteers but they still couldn't find him. They didn't know if he had wandered off or had been abducted or what. In the spring when the snow drifts melted, they found his body only a few feet from the door.