Blizzard of '78 Memories?

[Maria64]

Can you believe we are approaching the 25th anniversary of the Blizzard of 78? Certainly the most snow I've ever seen. I was in the 8th grade and it was so much fun!! I'd love to hear some stories......

 

[shep]

We were off school the month of January and part of February and went to school on saturdays and halfway thru June..
The Ohio River froze and a few people drove acrossed it..
I remember lots of sled riding & innertubing...

 

[Saffron]

All I remember was trying to shovel out and it was waist deep on me! I'm small, 5'3" but still!!!! I couldn't lift my legs high enough to walk through it. LOL! Oh yeah, a coworker thought it would be funny to wash my face in the snow.

 

[caitycaity]

i am a blizzard of '78 baby.

 

[Margie J]

We had no school for a week. Since I was a HS Senior I didn't have to make up the time later in the year.

Snow was piled up over my head on both sides of our driveway. OMG!

I'm just happy I wasn't one of those unlucky people who were stuck in their cars along Rt. 128 that day.

 

[Gail T AGAIN]

I don't like to remeber it, I met my EX, yes I said EX and from there it was all downhill.

 

[paras4ri]

I was a freshman at the University of Rhode Island and our campus didn't get hit as hard as many areas in our state. We made the most of the week off from classes with snowball fights and ice sculpture contests. Our campus housed people stranded at a nearby Amtrack station. As the week went on supplies started running low, including food in the dining halls. I remember the National Guard landing a helicopter on the school quadrangle to bring medical supplies to the infirmary.

Home was in Cranston, about 40 minutes north, and my mom was literally snowed in her house for several days.

 

[snoopy]

What I most remember about the Blizzard of 78 was that my boyfriend (now husband) got stranded at our house for a week! My dad was none too happy about that fact, either. Until of course he found out what a good shoveler his future son-in-law was.

 

[CamColt]

We were just looking at pictures of this tonight. I was 6 years old and I can remember walking out the door and not needing to go down steps...it was just all snow mounds. We even walked on cars. Ill have to get some of the pictures from my parents house to post.

 

[captin fink]

I was in collage in Columbus Ohio and we were snowed in for a week. Not much to do but sit around the apartment and party. (at least until the beer ran out )

At the time I was working at the Sear's distribution center on Fisher Rd on the NW side of Columbus. One day, in mid March, as I was driving into work I noticed a tail light sticking out of a snow bank along the side of the road. A few days later the snow had melted enough that you could se the rear end of a 64 Dodge dart sticking out. That car had been buried in that snow bank for over 2 months.

 

[antkim]

Our entire street(dead end) had a snow sculpting contest.We got the booby prize!We made a volcano!!A huge pile of snow,covered with red jello and a tiki torch lit in the middle!!!!We had a blast.
Kim

 

[catsrule]

no school

 

[melk]

I was in 6th grade, couldn't even tell you how long we had off from school. The snow drifts were unbelievable. I remember we could walk right up one on to my garage roof. It just seemed like endless days of sledding and building snow forts! Oh yes, my cousins were in the midst of moving up from Georgia and they were staying with us. I remember my 5 year old cousin had never seen snow before. What an introduction!!!

 

[NHAnn]

Oh, man, am I OLD or what?? 25 YEARS?!?!!?

SO many memories. BIG snowbanks!! LOL

I was a junior at BC...I was a commuter student living at home in Framingham. I went to school the day the storm started. By noon, classes had been cancelled and instead of going HOME I went into the Coast Guard Station in Boston where then-boyfriend (now ex-h) was stationed. I remember sitting in the parking lot of CG Commsta Boston watching a metal sign blow off the top of one of the old pier warehouses narrowly missing my car. Then the CG even let HIM off early from his "watch" and the 2 of us drove home to the 'burbs, down the MassPike that afternoon..........a 30 minute trip taking a couple of hours.... and him literally driving up the median on the MassPike Framingham exit around stalled cars, over snowdrifts, in my old VW bug!! We ended up at his mom's house in Sudbury, stranded for a week with his family instead of mine . I remember a friend of ours driving a snowmobile over from Framingham to Sudbury and doing grocery runs to the Star MArket on Rt 20 in Sudbury, with a sled attached to snowmobile and milk crates attached to the sled with "bungie" cords to bring milk, bread and other neccesities to anyone who needed it. I remember my college friend from Braintree telling me later that she was stranded in the General Cinema theatre on 128 that afternoon, had to abandon her car on 128 and the theatre was the closest place to take shelter...she slept there for a couple or 3 nights living on popcorn, candy and soda til she cold get to her home a few miles away. I remember a few days after the snow stopped, we were driving around town, marvelling at the snowbanks...taking me home for clean clothes, etc....and getting stopped by the Framingham Police since "only emergency persnnel" should be on the road, but ex showing them his Coast Guard ID and talking our way out of a ticket .
Thanks for the memeories

 

[cassie]

Boy, do I remember that storm. We were living in a community that was on a steep hill. With rear wheel drive, no one could get their cars up. Everyone parked on the bottom, and they all carried bags of groceries and liquor home. I wasn't working then, so I loved it. But, after 3 days being homebound with DH I had had it!! The first day we were able to drive again, I headed to the grocery store. Our condo was at the top of a u street, and I couldn't make it up the hill to get out. I kept sliding back down the hill. I was an in-experience driver then, and I kept going up the same icy side, only to slide back down. I finally got stuck in a snowbank and had to get DH to get the car out. A neighbor had front-wheel drive and offered to take me to the store.

 

[Cindy B]

My BIl lived in Boston at that time. Since my DH was younger then, he's 40 now. my BIL saved all the newspapers of the time for him.. .now my DH has about 4 or 5 newspapers of that week down in the basement...

 

[BethR]

I feel so stupid. I don't know if I remember this storm.
I would have been a freshman in college in Erie, Pa.
You know, as I type this, I am thinking that I remember having a few days of school cancelled (we had a lot of commuters) and staying safe and warm in our dorms. I do remember not being able to go home to celebrate my brother's birthday. His birthday is January 26 and we were suuposed to go out for dinner, and I remember being very upset. But I don't know that I remember a HUGE amount of snow - we always seemed to have a lot of snow.
Does anyone know if this storm extended into western PA?

 

[Serena]

LOL, I was 14 and had no worries and NO school.

 

[Jenzebelle]

I was just barely 3 so I don't remember very much other than we lost power and needed to stay with my Grandparents.

We had to have a plow bring us there (to the top of my Grandparents' street) because of the snow was too deep for our Nova to handle and my Dad had to carry both myself and our basset hound because it was too deep for us to walk.

 

[SplshMtn99]

Too many to share. (JasonLyons will scold me again. )

I too was in 8th grade - Blackstone, MA.
Monday - they called for flurries. By 10am, school was dismissed. My friends bus didn't get home till 5pm.
Next morning, only way out of house was by bathroom window. My dad threw me out into a snow drift. I made my way to door to try to shovel it open.

No school for a wk.
Didn't see a plow come by our house until Wednesday.
My dad & brother had contract to plow the schools. It took them until Saturday to finish.

No vehicles allowed on roads once they were opened by end of wk. My friend & I walked 3 miles to store & 3 miles back just to find they were out of bread-- and EVERYTHING else. (I'm NOT kidding. That sounds like a story my dad would tell.)

National Guard (with guns) at MA/RI border was confiscating all pick-up trucks with plows to help. My dad explained he just needed to enter RI to get gas so he could finish plowing the schools. They let him go.

First newspaper after the storm was on Saturday. I still have that newspaper. I take it out every so often.

We had 36" of snow. FLURRIES -- YAH, RIGHT!!!!
Now you know why everyone buys all the bread & milk when they call for flurries in MA/RI.