I was 11 so....SNOWDAY! In fact I think there were quite a few of them.
Farmington Valley, CT. Renting city owned housing with a big yard afforded me a great view from the second floor window....the snow pile that kept coming closer and closer as the plows kept clearing out the hospital roads and putting it in the yards around. They did hit the garage...and I actually have a picture of how they destroyed the door...with my aunts 67 Mustang inside....ouch!
I remember building a big igloo structure out in front of the house with that street side snow pile, that was a pretty neat play house for a few weeks.
I think basically though I just wanted to stay home from school and play in the snow.
I do have a pretty vivid memory of the melt down that spring though...we were at the top end of a hill...warmth came along and there was more water than the streets could handle, and the storm drains. I remember the flooding in the streets that included water gushing back out of the drains, that was kinda cool.
Q - we built tunnels through the snow banks. And we had to all go out to help dad shovel out the end of the drive way.....
Yes, most people forget what happened a little later when all that snow began to melt.
Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!
Luckily, having all those plows in and out, we didnt have to do much in the way of shoveling...tunneling was fabulous that year, I cant think of another year I did that.
I only ever once missed school because of nature. Ours was a "flood day". The town where I grew up (Windang) was basically reclaimed swamp land, and everytime it rained heavy it wanted to be a swamp again. And the school was in the lowest flattest part of town.
A local radio personality used to talk about a fictional town (of his own creation) called Windang Heights of which he claimed the title of Mayor. For us locals it was a bit of fun. But of course people used to believe it. As you're wading through 3 feet of flood water a tourist would ask "where's Windang Heights"?
You're in it.
The Charles River was frozen and there was all that snow on top of the ice. Everyone was cross-country skiing and pulling their kids around on sleds.
My sons were six and two that year. For them, it was nonstop fun!! Sledding, snow men, tunneling, snow ball fights and, for the six year old, NO SCHOOL!
Gadzooks - how do you people live in this stuff?!
I was propping up the bar at my favorite pub because I was at that time heavily into interior design and most of my Eastern shipments were held up in the blizzard. Those 4-6 week delivery times were now running 8-10 weeks and my customers weren't about to listen to the blizzard excuse. Of course, the economic slump had also raised prices and caused some factories to go on extended vacations where they just closed down the facility.
I was propping up the bar at a comfortable Holiday Inn in Arlington Virginia, where I was essentially trapped for a couple days. Iwas there on business, and being a North Country boy, was greatly amused by the inconvenience caused the area by what would have been a wholly unremarkable snowfall "Back Home".
There was some discussion of particulars re the reimbursement vouchers I supplied to the accounting department of the firm for which I worked. We reached a compromise.
Thinking about it now, I recall the Holiday Inn Bar ran out of "Good" Scotch. I was reduced to getting by on Cognac as the end of my captivity approached. We all make sacrifices when in extremis.
timber
Although I lived and went to college in Philadelphia, I spent 3 years after graduation living and working in Haiti. 1978 was one of those years, and it was strange hearing about it on the news and not being there. February 3 was a typical day, teaching all morning and hanging out on the beach all afternoon.
Beginning the second semester of my junior year in college.
Was enjoying my first semester as an active member of my fraternity, having pledged and been initiated the previous fall.
I think this was also the year I changed my major, although that came later in the spring.
Hi all. Hi Andrew -- Thanks for this thread, I was pondering starting an Anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978 thread.
I was just a kid, almost eight years old. We ended up having a month off from school, 3 weeks for the storm and one via February vacation. The 50 inches of snow was towering, our dog, a black standard poodle just dived in, if only he could of pitched in shoveling -- The combination hurricane is what undid us, and the rest of our town and the consecutive four, 16 foot tides, combined with the full moon and the winds of the storm that stalled. Our house is built a bit lower than everyone elses on the street (ironically another parcel next door, was given back to the town, my dad has named it a cove after a man that used to keep his boat here -- If there was a house there on the beach there, it would have been destroyed). And so, we were the only ones that flooded, the seawall held miraculously but there was no fence. Everything in the lower part of the yard floated away (yes floated) this included my dad's car, an old Ford and my uncle's iron trowl (old boat). The water came into our cellar in several feet -- We turned off the electricity and via an illegal drain (that came with the house) swept the water into the sewer and ran a sub-pump. We ended up saving the furnace, which gave out in the spring.
This entire, past week a local Boston television station (WCVB-TV, Channel 5, an ABC affiliate) ran an hour show every single night about the storm. A lot of the emphasis is on how neighbors helped each other -- Which was not the case with us. None of the neighbors helped my dad, trying to rescue the other car from the top of the driveway. Only my aunt (my mom's best friend) and her son walked from there house, to help us pump out the cellar. Not even our "extended family" next door helped out. We saw no civil defense assistance from the town either, and later when everyone when on food stamps, my mom refused because we never lost electricity or had our food spoil. My mom had to convince the insurance company that damage to the wall was not from the water, but from the wind driving the water, which she did.
It was eerily quiet until Logan opened again for military flights. I remember being out in the snow shoveling with the dog, watching the helicopters. Most people used sleds to transport groceries from the local markets, where there were long lines, etc. In Revere, behind the boulevard, near the marsh and North Shore Road -- We had a small house, "the shack" my parents bought for $1500 burned down and rebuilt it and rented out. The woman tenant had called my mother and asked her what to do. My mom told her to switch off the electricity, and good thing. The National Guard took her and her cat and another neighbor off the roof -- However, my dad was worried because she didn't shut off the water -- And that the pipes would freeze and burst. So my parents left me with a neighbor/extended family, and walked to Revere, carrying an inflatable boat, since the boulevard/beach had been hit with a tidal wave. When they got to the beach, the national guard stopped them. My mom begged the national guard guys to take my dad to the shack in one of those "duck" vehicles. They did and my dad went in through a window to shut off the water, then they walked back home. I remember waiting, worrying they were never going to come back. My mom's feet were never the same walking through the icy water. A few days later, the same national guard guys drove by, and waved to us, out shoveling, etc.
Many homes in our town's point and front beach area were destroyed or greatly damaged, so we counted ourselves lucky. In Hull, my maternal grandparents and other residents, stayed with the one set of neighbors on the street that had power, everyone brought there food over there. Unfortunately the pipes burst in their house, and they came to live with us after awhile after that.
Similar to another poster, for many years businesses had out these certificates saying that they survived the Blizzard of '78 and people had bumper stickers. I hope I never see anything like it again.
Great reminiscences, edithdoll! Where were you living? Sounds like Winthrop.
Sorry to rain (or snow) on this parade, but the Blizzard of '78 was February 6-7th not the 3rd. There was a storm slightly smaller then
THE[/i] storm on January 20th. The January 20th storm actually set the record for 24-hour snowfall in Boston that the February 6-7th storm then broke.
Providence Journal Archives
What was I doing? I was just shy of 4, so I really don't recall, but I was on the Cape and we got snow that changed to rain so by the morning of the 7th, there wasn't much to talk about. 1986 was the year of big snow in my childhood, between school vacation and snow storms, we had almost the entire month of February off from school. Boston got little to no snow while the Cape was buried that year.
Providence Journal Blizzard of '78 Photo Gallery
Welcome to A2K, Hyannis. Thank you for the correction. You're absolutely right, Feb. 6, not Feb. 3. I think I was so eager to get this thread going and get some devcent reminiscences that I tried to jump the gun by three days. Good catch.
Hi Andrew,
Yes, lovely Winthrop by the Sea, Logan Airport & the MWRA plant/Deer Island.
: )
Right this minute we seem to be headed for a repetition of 1978.
Watching the TV news, I can really sympathize with those in the path of the storm. Oddly, around here, where a 24" snowfall in 24 hours is considered "Moderate" and occasions no particular notice, we've had distressingly little snow this winter or the last. Winter Tourism, a major part of the local economy, is devastated. The local watertable will suffer in the spring if we continue to miss the moisture you folks are currently getting. We'd like it back as soon as you're done with it, please.
timber
