Uh, I think the concern this time was with the cold (wind chills of -50 degrees), not the amount of snow.
We had both in Cental Indiana this weekend; 12 inches of snow then 2 days of -40 wind chill. But in 78, it went on with waves of snow for weeks and covered the whole midwest and much of the northeast.
Yeah, I don’t remember the Blizzard of ‘78 as being particularly cold, just a lot of snow. And the window of my dorm room froze shut and I couldn’t get it open again until Spring.
It was as cold or colder in the 70s and they NEVER closed schools or shut down government. NEVER. I guess they covered up the mass deaths... / s