The Blizzard of 78 anyone?

[LisaNJ25]

I was 4 and don't remember a thing.

 

[SunKat]

I remember! I was in high school and my family was going on vacation to California and Nevada. We were lucky that we were able to get our flight to LA (two days after the storm) and head to warm weather.

 

[UrsulasShadow]

I also remember my brother being stuck on Rte. 128 during that storm. The Nat'l Guard and various people with snowmobiles had to come along and transport them to the nearest shelters, which were mostly businesses and such...my lucky brother got a Howard Johnson's hotel room.

 

[CPM]

I remember it!!
I was a junior in HS, living in rural CT. None of my neighbors had heat, we had a wood burning stove. Alot of the neighbors stayed at our house. Many little kids running around.
I was at *that age* and hated being stuck inside without any of my friends. My dad worked for the electric company and was out working in that mess for days, trying to get the electricity back on for everyone.

 

[andrabell]

30 years? Holy merde! I'm a native of Revere, MA, tons of snow and no school for a week, paradise for a child of 8. The snow came up the roof of our house so we walked to the supermarket at Northgate shopping center. We pulled the sled along for the shopping bags.

Now, I enjoy the more temperate climate of Atlanta, GA. Can't say I miss the snow at all.

 

[floridalaurie]

I was inthe 7th grade and remember school closing early and then being closed for a week. I lived in Weymouth MA at the time. The state was shut down and there were no cars allowed on the roads. We took our sleds and walked 3-4 miles to the store. We did lots of shoveling the week we were off but we also had lots of fun!!

 

[PatsMom]

I was in Air Force basic training in San Antonio during the blizzard but I remember talking to my mother by phone. They were housebound and she had neighbors staying with her because she had heat - we had a wood furnace at the time. My younger brothers were ecstatic over having no school for such an extended time. My mother was trying to figure out how she was going to pay her bills that month - no work meant no money for her. Her company did eventually allow the workers to use their vacation time. I was sorry to miss the big storm.

 

[Virgo10]

I was living in Plymouth, MA and, lucky for us, we didn't lose our electricity during the storm.

The most amazing part of the storm happened on the second day. After 24 hours of heavy snow, the sky started to clear. When I looked out, I could see clouds all around us but not right over us. We were in the eye of the storm! When the clouds moved back in, it snowed even harder.

Like everyone else, we were forced to stay off the roads until the following Sunday although we went out that Saturday. I had a baby and a toddler and we were running out of food. The streets looked like they'd been cleaned by a maid service they were so pristine.

I felt we had been very lucky. People I knew up in Quincy didn't have light for 6 or 7 days.

Here are some pictures I took all those many years ago.

Outside of my house after the storm.

My Street.

Me and my 2 year old son. He's now 32... how the heck did that happen??

People shoveling snow off the roof of Purity Supreme.

Parking lot snow mountains.

What use to be Bert's Restaurant.

We saw boulders the size of a VW thrown completely across the street and sand dunes in the parking lots. It really was an amazing event.

 

[Simba's Mom]

OMG-I remember it! We lived in Paxton, MA at the time. My neighbor was expecting a baby any minute, so her DH was desperately trying to keep the driveway clear. We lived 2 miles from the town center, and neighbors took turns walking up to the center of town (because the governor had declared a state of emergency so no one could drive) for milk, bread, cigarettes, etc. The house across the street had snow up to their roof and had to dig a tunnel out of their front door. I believe some national TV station gave our area "the golden snow shovel" for receiving the most snow in Central New England.

 

[Deb in IA]

I was a freshman at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

I remember trudging to class, bundled up with only our eyes exposed - I lived at McCutcheon Hall, the farthest from all the academic buildings. I don't think we had ANY cancelled classes - they said, "This is Purdue; we don't ever cancel classes !"

My aunt and uncle and their kids had just immigrated a month before from Singapore, which is equatorial and never gets below 70 degrees there. They got a taste of this Great Blizzard, and just about turned around to flee back to there!

 

[disneyfan67]

In chicago I think the big ones were '69 (I was 4) and '79

Mikeeee

The winter of 1978 was the big one. 1979 was wasn't small by any means, but it didn't match the snowfall of 1978. The owner of Highland Park Ford back then got his hands on every 4x4 truck he could get including buying from other dealers. They even had snowplowing equipment installed on some of the trucks. He did this because of the demand from the winter of 78 and people were buying them right and left. When the winter of 79 came around and was a lot tamer than expected, he couldn't sell them. Those trucks just sat on his lot all year and bankrupted him. He literally had to close his doors and he lost the franchise. It's just one of the things I remember from that time period.

 

[Geoff_M]

The snow came up the roof of our house so we walked to the supermarket at Northgate shopping center. We pulled the sled along for the shopping bags.

We lived in Muncie, IN. I was 13 at the time and likewise remember walking the better part of two miles to the local Marsh Supermarket with my Dad as we trailed a "Radio Flyer" sled behind us.

 

[monorailsilver]

I was 6 so I barely remember it.

I do remember looking out the front living room window at the snow falling.

We skiied down our street since we lived on a hill.

Our neighbor from the bottom of the hill came up & borrowed my dad's snow blower.

That's all I remember.

I do here from time to time from my mother "they shut down the state & we couldn't go anywhere".

I lived in Trumbull, CT when that happened, actually I lived there my whole life until I got married & moved to the other side of the state.

 

[stego]

I was in junior high, had a afternoon paper route. We were in the army base supplied housing, two levels. I remember looking out my second story window one housing unit over, it was up to the top of the first story. The news said no one on the roads, just for necessities. School closed, but bored. Back then no cable but I did go out a lot to be outside, mostly hanging out with my friends, going on our sleds. Went back the summer of 2006 and they have removed all the housing but the elementary school is now there. They are in the process of razing "Devens" and building something else. The old field house was still there but boarded up; went around back and someone had knocked out one of the boards and looked in; eerie a bit but nostalgic. Even went up the the jr. high and roamed the halls with my son...30 years later...homeroom, cafeteria. I knew where everything was...still. The pizza place was still there, but I remember it being bigger. Ayer hasn't changed much, the old diner is now gone.

 

[jen0610]

Both DH and I remember it well, he was 8 and I was 10. On record Ft Wayne got 17 inches, but the drifting, oh buddy. DH's family lives out in the country and their house runs north/south. They could get out the front door (east facing) and walk around and up onto the roof. They had snow drifts up over the roof line. There is nothing but corn fields directly behind their house. He was out of school for close to two weeks, due to being a small country school.

They have pictures of DH standing up on the roof and the snow drifts. They even have a picture of a semi on US 1, once it was plowed, showing the tops of the snow banks even with the tops of the semi trailers.

I remember being stuck inside with not only my 2 brothers, but the four foster kids we had at that time. I wouldn't have been so bad, if one of them had been a girl, but it was all boys.

 

[Dodie]

I was a junior in high school. School let out early when it started to snow, like at 1:00 p.m. That was a big deal then. Early dismissals, late arrivals, and school cancellations just weren't as common then. I lived within walking distance of the school, but remember that the snow was really falling heavily and the wind had begun to howl by the time I got home.

I'm an only child. My parents and I were essentially stuck in the house for several days (maybe a week?) Our power went out for awhile, I remember that it got pretty cold before it came back on. This was when there were only 4 channels of television, but, even that was welcome when the power came back on.

My dad worked at a big factory in Indianapolis and it was shut down. That never happened!

We put together a lot of jigsaw puzzles and read a lot. It snowed so much and drifted so high that our dog walked right over the chain link fence one day. I had to go chase him down. We had to shovel a tunnel like area for him to go outside after that.

 

[Lucky4me]

I was 17 and from Western NY. I remember the 8 foot drifts and the 15 foot piles on either side of the road when they plowed. It was crazy.
We had a two story deck that we jumped off of into the snow.
That's about all I remember. Don't know if we lost power or not or how long I couldn't get around in my 66 Pontiac Catalina.

 

[dcgrumpy]

Did it hit Downstate NY? I was in 7th grade but I don't remember it at all.

 

[okeydokey]

I remember walking to the store dragging a sled so we could pull our groceries home. That and all the snow days from school!

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Did it hit Downstate NY? I was in 7th grade but I don't remember it at all.

I was thinking the same thing. I was in the 12th grade and don't remember anything big in Queens.