Comments on: The Quick 10: 10 of the Worst U.S. Blizzards Ever

By: Linda M.

Linda M. — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:47:02 +0000

I remember the Iowa blizzard of 1973. I was on a Greyhound bus with my mother and five siblings, having left Philadelphia for Colorado Springs. The bus got stranded in the snow in a small town in Iowa (I wish I could remember the name), and all of us passengers were put up at the local town hall for 3 days. The townspeople brought us cots and blankets and food. I remember eating the most delicious burgers I’d ever tasted, called Made Rights. I thought the people of Iowa were very nice folks!

By: John S

John S — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:50:26 +0000

I live in northern Maryland. Last year (2010) we had almost 90 inches of snow, most of it in three separate blizzards that amounted to about two feet each. One hit a week before Christmas (2009), then after a relatively quiet January, we had a couple of storms in early February when they hit – two big storms back to back. Each dropped over two feet of snow, but we got out and about the next day. We almost had another one a week or so later, but it went to the north. Baltimore easily broke the record for its all-time snowiest winter anyway, but if that storm would have hit us, Baltimore would have been the snowiest city in the country for the entire year, and would have eclipsed the all-time snowfall record for places like Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and all kinds of other places you think of as real snow or cold weather cities. I don’t think we’ll ever see another winter like that one around here again.

By: robert simon

robert simon — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 01:18:15 +0000

The Blizzard of ’66 was horrible,but quite exciting at the same time…Upstate New York State was really pummeled.The snow drifts were HUGE!

By: Jeanne Govoni

Jeanne Govoni — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:18:10 +0000

I was surprised not to see the Blizzard of 1978. I was in high school, but we had family friends who worked in Boston. They were stuck in cars and buses on Route 3 trying to come home. I was supposed to meet my Dad in Florida (visiting family – it happened right before February vacation). He was stuck in Florida and I was stuck in Plymouth, MA shoveling out motel rooms. All the first floor seaside windows (and protecting wood) were broken and rocks, sand, and snow were inside the rooms.

By: Cait

Cait — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:47:11 +0000

Paul, my family lives in the South Bend area, and my parents have told similar stories. My mom talks about seven foot snow drifts.

The worst snow I can remember happened in 1998, when I was in Kindergarten. I don’t know exactly how much snow we got, but we actually got to leave school early that day.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:59:52 +0000

Yeah, I think it was early 1978 in South Bend, Indiana; they brought in tanks to push enough snow so the plows could operate, and they loaded the snow into dump trucks and dumped it in the river since there wasn’t anywhere to put it. We had fun jumping off the roof of our 2-story house.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:58:37 +0000

Chicago’s blizzard of 1967 – I don’t really remember it, I was 8 months old. It crippled the city and snow removal was a hot button political issue ever since. As another poster mentioned the Blizzard of ’79 in Chicago and the lack of quick snow removal helped the mayor’s challenger win the election.
More recently, holiday blizzard Dec-Jan 2006-07 in Denver, CO where we now live. Four feet of snow in 2 weeks! It was great though, because our family was visiting and they got snowed in – we had a blast!

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:57:54 +0000

Yes, the Ice Storm of 98 was incredible.

My family lived out in the Maine woods–I was in high school and didn’t even bother finding out if school was canceled for a week, because it was just impossible to travel that far safely. Radio announcers were taking calls from people asking neighbors to check in on specific folk they knew were elderly or alone. We could hear the weight of the ice breaking trees in the forest, and I remember finally driving in to town 9 days after the worst of it with my dad. I will never forget the trains of emergency trucks from other states, lines of people waiting for generators, and how everything looked like it had been bowed down by some kind of bomb blast. Every tree seemed flattened, yet it all sparkled under inches of icy coating.

By: James Conley

James Conley — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:56:31 +0000

The Blizzard of 1978 in eastern Massachusetts was the worst by far. The snow began on Monday morning and soon was falling at 3 to 4 inches per hour. By late afternoon, winds were blowing at 60 to 75 mph. The snow stopped on Wednesday morning, leaving huge drifts of snow. All the while, I was trapped in an office in Norwood, where, fortunately, the cook in the Company’s cafeteria was also trapped. It was illegal to drive in Suffolk County (Boston) until the following Tuesday. After the snow stopped, I walked down the middle of Route 1A from Norwood to Dedha, where my parents lived. I stayed with them until Friday morning, when I walked out to I-95, where it was legal for utility workers to drive. I joined about five other people for a 10 mile drive to Route 16 in Wellesley. It was a bright, sunny day, and people were simply more friendly than I had ever seen. After a thirty minute week, I joined my wife and our one-year-old baby, whose first birthday I had missed. Our house was on the border of Norfolk County and Middlesex County (where it was legal to drive.) After hiring a front-end loader to move snow from our driveway, we ate out that first night. On Monday, two fully-loaded trains passed by the Wellesley Hills station before a third train stopped. I found a few inches of space in which to stand. No tickets were punched by the conductor that morning. I arrived in my office in Copley Square at 10:30 AM, had lunch, and grew tired of listening to others’ stories. Just like you, dear reader, are growing tired of these stories.

By: clayetta montee

clayetta montee — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:38:51 +0000

Rochester, NY – blizzard of 1966 – I will never forget. I worked M-F and normally did food shopping on Saturdays. But for some reason I did not go Saturday but since Blue Laws were in effect, could not shop Sunday so had planned on grocery shopping Monday night. The storm hit Sunday night while we slept with no warning whatsoever. We work Monday to many black windows, some with black in a line and the sky agove the line – could not figure it out but soon realized it was snow half way up the living room windows at an angle to the gutters. Our doors opened outwards and we could not get out. We had to climb to the 2nd floor, open the window and get out on the porch roof. We’d slide down the snow on an aluminum disk/sled from the 2nd floor by had no where to go – 4 days to dig the roads out. Snow was packed so hard we’d sink only 8″ when we walked across the snow at a depth of 8′. We were basically trapped and existed on 1/2 gallon milk, 1 loaf of bread and pancake mix until Thursday when the National Guard came with payloaders scooping snow, putting in dump trucks and then hauling snow away via the railway miles away. Then in a few days when streets were dug out, we dug tunnel to the front door so we could go outside. Streets were so strange – walls of snow at least 8′ straight up – one lane wide – you could not see street signs, landmarks – just driving down a road with snow 8′ straight up on each side – hard to figure out where you were – we did not lose electricity nor heating (oil). I’ll never forget it. It was a great time – lots of fun.