Anyone in New England for the 1978 blizzard?

[lewelma]

All this talk about storms makes me think of one of my fondest childhood memories. The 1978 Blizzard: 2 weeks off school, 3ft of snow, hurricane force winds, and HUGE snow drifts. Anyone else remember it from a child's eyes?

 

"The storm's power was made apparent by its sustained hurricane-force winds of approximately 86 mph with gusts to 111 mph."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978

 

Ruth in NZ

[deerforest]

Me! We were living in RI and it was definitely one of my strongest childhood memories. I was 8!

[thebacabunch]

Yes! I was 5! I have th best pictures of snowdrifts twice as tall as I was!

[blakereese]

I was in Ohio then and we also had quite the blizzard. I was 6 and I remember it all so clearly. It was so cozy, snuggling up with the family and eating Campbell's soup that my Dad warmed up with a candle. :lol:

 

We rode a sled out of our 2nd story bedroom window. :001_huh::lol: I'm sure my parents were a nervous wreck and were so tired of no electricity, but they made it fun for us. I only remember playing in the snow, my sister riding her tricycle around and around and around the family room, and missing school for a long time. :001_smile:

[6packofun]

I was also in Ohio and we remember it well! A snow drift blocked the entire front side of our house and after we dug out we played out there for hours! We turned that snow drift into a "pirate ship"! LOL I think we cooked bean w/bacon soup on a gas heater of some sort when the power was out. :)

[LaxMom]

I was in western Maine and honestly don't remember any blizzard. I don't think I ever had a day off school for weather until we moved south...

 

Did I seriously miss a real blizzard? I have to ask my dad.

[lewelma]

My mother fed the 5 families in our little neighbourhood because the driving restriction lasted so much longer than anyone expected. I was so sick of zuchinni because that was what was in the freezer!

[lulubelle]

I was about 9 and have strong memories of those two weeks off of school. It was such a blast! I remember walking about a mile down to the highway and seeing all the abandoned cars. It was amazing. We had a lot of outside adventures.

[greenvneck]

I was in Ohio then and what I remember is that fire engines came to remove us from our house (probably a century old, with no electricity or heat once the blizzard hit). Our driveway was long and downhill from the house; I was in the fire engine cab and saw my mom slip and fall while holding my <2yo brother (I was 4yo) and thought they died until a fireman picked up my mom and placed her next to me.

 

My kids, who have always lived in Texas, couldn't even IMAGINE that kind of situation!!

[sparrow]

Not in New England, but Michigan! I was 8. I agree with others, that it is probably one of my fondest childhood memories and it's so funny to think how stressed out my parents must have been.

 

My parents' home is on a lake and the drift off the patio door, facing the lake, went to the roof of their ranch. I went sledding off the roof, down the drift, and out onto the frozen lake :001_smile:. The streets downtown looked like white-walled tunnels, when we were finally able to dig out and see them. The local radio station played dispatcher to anyone with a snowmobile to pick up doctors and nurses and take them to the hospital. I remember eating fried Spam sandwiches, heated up on the Coleman stove.

[LibraryLover]

:)

Edited November 2, 2012 by LibraryLover

[lmrich]

I was in Ohio. At the airport hoping to get on a flight to my first to Disney World. Flight was cancelled, of course, and a stranger offered to drive us home as there were no cabs. The wind was amazing. The snow drifts incredible. We went to Disney two weeks later.

[JessReplanted]

I was born (in MA) the following fall. :lol:

[Mrs_JWM]

I was a year old, so I don't remember it, but there are pictures of my dad taking me sledding off our ranch-style house roof. We're from Syracuse, and my dad is from the Tug Hill plateau, so no strangers to snow here!

[Matryoshka]

It was the week of my 13th birthday, and we were visiting friends in PA (my friend also had her 13th birthday that week). We were stranded in PA for a whole week, till they re-opened the roads and we could go home (MA). When we got there, a week later, the drifts were still practically to the top of our front door.

 

One of the reasons the drifts were so high is that we'd just had 2ft of snow, and the 3ft that blizzard dumped was on top of it. And it came down so fast all the cars got stuck in drifts on the highway, and they couldn't plow. That's why the roads were closed so long.

[NancyNellen]

Yes! I was nearly 5 and lived in central MA. I remember sleeping in the living room to be warm by the fire. The drifts were so tall that we were trapped in our house for a couple days. It IS a fond childhood memory!

[Julie in Austin]

I was a toddler, in RI, and I remember (or remember being told about later?) my dad taking me in the sled to the corner store for milk. :)

[Dana]

We had friends who had a board game based on it, so that's how I know about it. :lol:

[1bassoon]

Kinda sorta. . . . .

 

I lived in Ohio, but my dad had just started a new job working in CT. He flew back and forth on the weekends. I remember that he couldn't come home for at least one weekend, due to the blizzard.

 

A fine welcome to New England that was!

[posybuddy]

Me! We lived in a little isolated neighborhood in small town central MA - it wasn't a high plowing priority, and we had no school, so my friends and I spent the days cross-country skiing up and down the streets and dragging each other around on sleds. My folks still have a picture of my dad up on a ladder digging the 4-foot deep snowdrifts off the roof. I don't remember losing power or anything, but it was a fairly new neighborhood with underground cables so we might have been okay. I remember the travel restrictions, though.

[LostSurprise]

In the Midwest that's known as "the blizzard of '79" because most of it happened over New Years (I think, I had just turned 6 at the time). I do remember huge drifts when we went to invite kids to my brother's birthday party (Jan 13).

 

My parents helped manage a townhouse complex. My pregnant mother helped dig out the tow truck guy who had to go out for emergencies.

[FriedClams]

I remember it!! I was 8 and grew up near Boston. I remember HUGE drifts. I don't remember being off from school but clearly remember sledding off our back porch which was on the second floor!!

[Elinor Everywhere]

I was in Ohio then, too! I was a Freshman in high school. I remember they were selling "I survived the blizzard of '78" t-shirts everywhere.

 

In 1986 I moved to San Diego and haven't had a serious winter since. Not that the two are necessarily related. :D

[Matryoshka]

In the Midwest that's known as "the blizzard of '79" because most of it happened over New Years (I think, I had just turned 6 at the time). I do remember huge drifts when we went to invite kids to my brother's birthday party (Jan 13).

.

 

Nope, that was a different blizzard. The Blizzard of '78 we're talking about was in February, 1978. I'm not sure it was even a big storm in the midwest.

 

Here's an image of why roads were closed a whole week. (I can't think of another storm that had cars stuck in drifts on the highway like that):

 

Here's a blurb I found with this image: The largest winter storm in recent history is the Blizzard of 1978, which dumped 20 to 40 inches of snow on the Northeast and produced near-hurricane force winds of 65 mph. The storm dropped snow for 33 hours, sometimes at the rate of 4 inches an hour. Many motorists were stranded on the highways throughout the Northeast. Several people died on Route 128 outside Boston as snow piled high enough to prevent exhaust fumes from escaping their idling vehicles. Others were trapped in their homes or offices as snow drifts up to 15 feet high blocked the exits. Fierce northeast winds from the storm combined with astronomically high tides led to a storm surge flooding low-lying land along the shores of Long Island Sound, Cape Cod Bay, and other bodies of water. Two weeks were required to remove the snow, as over 3,500 cars were found abandoned and buried in the middle of roads during the clean-up effort

[TGHEALTHYMOM]

We had friends who had a board game based on it, so that's how I know about it. :lol:

__________________

What game????

[Shelsi]

I wasn't born yet but my brother was 6 mos old and my parents talk about it often. We were in Indiana. Apparently the neighborhood had a bunch of babies under a year old and after a bit everyone was running out of formula. So all the dads of the neighborhood got together and shoveled 2 miles to the nearest store.

 

I can't remember the year but we had a blizzard when I was in high school that happened right after xmas break so we ended up with just shy of 4 weeks off from school. Of course that was awesome until June rolled around and they extended our school calendar 2 weeks to make up for it. It sure was fun sledding off the roof though!

[TranquilMind]

All this talk about storms makes me think of one of my fondest childhood memories. The 1978 Blizzard: 2 weeks off school, 3ft of snow, hurricane force winds, and HUGE snow drifts. Anyone else remember it from a child's eyes?

 

"The storm's power was made apparent by its sustained hurricane-force winds of approximately 86 mph with gusts to 111 mph."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States_blizzard_of_1978

 

Ruth in NZ

:glare:How about from a teenager's eyes? My first car was totaled when I could not stop while driving FIVE MILES AN HOUR. I slammed right into the next vehicle on the solid ice. The guy I hit took me home. The whole city was closed for 3 days. The newscasters didn't even go home, because they couldn't. It was a mess.

 

Anyway...back to your happy childhood memories! ;)

[Dana]

We had friends who had a board game based on it, so that's how I know about it. :lol:

__________________

What game????

 

 

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15654/blizzard-of-77-travel-game

 

Looks like it may have been off a 77 blizzard. Enjoyed the game though :)

[Amanda's Mommy]

I was 10 in MA. My mother bundled me up and sent me out the window to shovel out the front door, because it opened out and had 4 feet of snow in front of it.

[courtney.byrum]

I was 1 1/2 so I don't remember it but I remember plenty of snow while growing up in VT!

[lewelma]

My parents had to tie the swing set down because of the winds, and then the snow came. And boy oh boy did it snow for days.

 

There was still a HUGE pile of snow in the middle of the cul-de-sac at the END of June. We had so much fun tunnelling.

 

We lived on the hospital grounds so my dad could still walk to work.

 

Apparently, my parents lost my younger sister (age 2) for a few minutes in the snow. :001_huh:

 

The cars were completely covered, and they have photos of 9 foot drifts. Connecticut had hurricane force winds. So these were some pretty serious drifts.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Giraffe]

So funny you should mention this! I was just thinking of it too. I was 10, living in RI, and had just moved from Hawaii the previous summer so it was quite a shock for me. The snow covered our front door and my dad had to tunnel out to get to work. No school for 2 weeks, just sledding, snowball fights and playing. My poor mother!

 

I remember seeing a newspaper with a photo of the MA/RI border and MA was all plowed and RI was all snow. I remember all the people trapped in their cars on the interstates and worrying my dad wouldn't make it home (he did).

 

I remember the weather forecasters all said it would be rain except for one, who warned it was going to be a big one. My parents listened to him so we were ready. I remember we went to school like normal that morning and then the sky just opened up and started DUMPING snow. They closed school early and we walked home in the snow and wind and my brother got blown down more than once. I felt like Laura Ingalls in Little House On the Prairie!

 

And yes, the Blizzard of 1979 was a different one. We lived in the DC area for that one (yes, we moved often). The snow was nothing like the 1978 storm, though it was bad.

[curlylocks]

I was 9 and we lived in Mid-coast Maine. I remember waking up that morning and finding a snowdrift in the back yard that was taller than our home!! :D

[delaney]

I lived on Long Island all my life and I remember going outside and walking on top of over 2 feet. That must have been it, right??

[brownie]

I was 4 in RI. I imagine that was the storm where my dad got stuck on the roads and had to sleep on a church pew until a friend with a snow plow came and dug him out. At least that's how I remember it - I'll have to ask my mom.

[KidsHappen]

I was a teen living in South Weymouth, MA. I remember we couldn't open our front door without snow falling in and the snow being level with the second floor windows. I also remember the miserable spring that followed and how long it took for all of the water to disapate. I remember a flash flood there that was so high we were literally swimming in the streets.

 

I have also had the great pleasure of living through some pretty big snow storms in Buffalo and Green Bay. At the one in Buffalo mu brother worked at a grocery store and the snow was so bad they shut the store down sent the employees home. My brother made it about a mile from the house before his car simply wouldn't go any more. He got out and walked the rest of the way. That was probably a good idea because the next day when we went to look for his car we couldn't find it. It was there but it was buried in snow. There weren't even lumps in the snow where the cars were. There was just an unbroken layer of snow above the level of all the stranded cars.

[Jennifer in MI]

Not in New England, but Michigan! I was 8. I agree with others, that it is probably one of my fondest childhood memories and it's so funny to think how stressed out my parents must have been.

 

My parents' home is on a lake and the drift off the patio door, facing the lake, went to the roof of their ranch. I went sledding off the roof, down the drift, and out onto the frozen lake :001_smile:. The streets downtown looked like white-walled tunnels, when we were finally able to dig out and see them. The local radio station played dispatcher to anyone with a snowmobile to pick up doctors and nurses and take them to the hospital. I remember eating fried Spam sandwiches, heated up on the Coleman stove.

 

These are my memories too!!! We made tunnels after our driveway was dug out. We climbed up the drifts on to the roof of our house. I remember one morning, we opened our front door and the drift was right there. We couldn't see out.

 

So. much. fun.

[mamajudy]

DH was in college in Boston at the time. He still talks about it, and we have lots of photos.

[lynn]

I remember that. I was in Mass. I think 6th grade. I remember mom sent someone out the kitchen window to shovel out the door. I wonder if that factored into my parents decision to move to Florida in '79....

Edited October 30, 2012 by lynn

[Kathryn]

I was born the following year, but have pictures from parents in Boston.

[Upward Journey]

Well I think I should remember, but I don't :tongue_smilie:I lived outside of Syracuse.