Blizzard of 78'.....Where Were You?

[luds]

Originally Posted by BigFish

Luds...I bet your plug cabinets are always full?

yeah.....with cases of Bombers.

[CAL]

Originally Posted by BigFish

Luds...I bet your plug cabinets are always full?

One of the biggest plug whores I've ever met

[riverrat55]

I was 28 and remember getting out of work and flooring my camaro to make it up a hill to get home!!!
Made it and was home with the wife and kids for the next 5 days!!!
Never saw a storm like that, and hope I never see one like that ever again!!!

[luds]

Did you guys know it was coming. If we had a storm like that I would be screwed. Don't exactly keep the cabinets stocked.

[Clogston29]

I was born in Nov. of '78. 9 months later. hmmmmm

[pmueller]

Originally Posted by Clogston29

I was born in Nov. of '78. 9 months later. hmmmmm

Snow boomer

[HESH2]

living in ct. governor ella grasso declared state of emergency.rt 91 and 95 were clogged with abandoned cars.i was working and left work at 3pm on a state road and got home to my street that was clogged with snow and got stuck in middle of road in front of my driveway.neighbor who worked for a contractor came shortly after driving a big payloader,put bucket under rear bumper and pushed me into my driveway.next day after he had plowed all nite he came home and plowed our street and we could get out.never saw snowed so high along roadways and parking lots.placed where i was working did'nt get plowed out for 3 days.

[Rockport24]

Originally Posted by pmueller

Snow boomer

yeah, I was apparently being conceived as well.... I was born in Nov of 78. Oh it's a great story my parents love to tell my friends and embarass me with.... my Dad was in the National Guard at the time came home on a snowmobile...blah blah blah,..... here I am....

[Tagger]

I got snowed in with my girlfriend for a week .. The blizzard of 78 was the peak of my career... Look back at it fondly ..

[Jimbo]

Selinsgrove, PA. Only thing I remember is working mega hours in the cafeteria, drinking way to much Genessey Cream Ale, and getting caught stealing wood so we could have a fire in the fireplace in our fraternity house.

[Slingah]

we were snowed in...I lived on a hill and had a clear view of the S.E. Expressway out my kitchen window from about a 1/2 mile away.....it was my birthday...I skied down my hill a zillion times...and all around the neighborhood.....GREAT memories of that storm....

[Flaptail]

I left Worcester that morning at 5am, it was a Monday and the friday before we had gotten 20 inches of snow on Grafton Hill, my old section of town. I was enroute to United Shoe Machine on the Beverley/Danvers line on rt. 62 for a meeting for an Electrical Project I was pm'ing.

As soon as I got there at 7:30 the guys at the loading dock told me I had a message from my boss, Ted Coghlin jr of Coghlin Electrical Contractors for me to call him. He had been watching the weather on the tv stations and it was not good. He told me to forget the meeting and get home to the shop asap back in Worcester.

I had bundles of sched 40 Galvi steel conduit in the back of my company pick up and decided to keep them in the truck and not drop them off as I would need the weight. I went back to rt. 128 on rt 62. As I passed a White Hen Pantry on the banks of the Danvers River the water was already coming over into the store parking lot. I got On Rt. 128 south and it took an hour to get from rt. 62 to rt. 114 where I made the decision to take 114 to 495s.

Best decision I ever made. It took 6 and a half hours to get to Worcester in 4 wheel drive with the pipe in the back helping to weigh me down. I parked the truck in front of my house and did not see it again until Wednesday Mornning as we shoveled it out of a ten foot drift that buried it.

Me and my cat Nina just partied for three days. Talk about wasted.

[kevin d]

It was my senior year in high school. I remember the radio or tv calling for light flurries that morning. As I was getting in my car the snow started, those really small flakes. My dad told me " You'll be home early today." About 15 minutes after school started it was cancelled. The principal's last words to us all: Drive carefully." While waiting to turn onto Turnpike Ave I was rear ended. I got out of the car to check the damage only to find out it was the principal who hit me
There was a group of us who stood on the side of Bristol Ferry Road and dug people out of the snow drifts that they slammed into. We made some good money doing that and doing driveways the next couple of days. Boy did we party too!

[pmueller]

Great thread. I was in pharmacology class at Northeastern. There was a dude that interupted the prof. with a note. Get out of class PDQ. Funny, when we got out of class, it was only flurries. By the time I got to the expressway it was like the commercial, follow the lights in front of you. Lucky to make it home in my '71 Pinto. I loved that car. Many of my friends got stuck on 128 and had to stay over in the cinema in Dedham. They ended up walking home a day or two later.
After the driving curfew, the town of Randolph experinced alot of issues with public drunkeness. Shut all the bars and package stores down. Luckily, the supermarket I worked at had a beer and wine section. Boy, I was the hero for a day.
It got a little chippy at home when I would share the brewskies with big bros.
Wild storm, the drifts that covered my pinto and my dads truck ran all the way up to the garage roof.

[doc]

i was nine...and i remember building snow forts in what seemed like mountains of snowbanks...also remember the north shore getting hammered by a massive surf....

[HighTide]

i was 14 at the time and remember being let out of school early that day and walking home from 3rd street in a white out. Also I remember the Peter Stuyvesant sinking next to Anthony's Pier 4 and the fishing pier at Castle Island completely twisted apart.

[saltfly]

I worked for MA BELL in hull,cohasset,and scituate.A friend called me to help get out of his basement appt.in hull.the water was pouring down the stairs as we grabbed what we could and drove out with water coming in the doors of my 76f-250.We got to higher ground and stopped to watch lobsters and tommy cod swimming where we had just left.We couldn't resist,we went into the water and grabbed appx.35lobsters in less than 10 mins and got out of town to my appt.in weymouth landing.We invited evryone from the bar accross the street and stuffed ourselves.I used my new x-country skis to get to peoples houses to fix their phones.Alot of houses in scituate & cohasset the phone cable was at eye height on the skis.Then we started on body recovery duty[3 people were missing in scituate] we tied lines to our climbing belts and dug into houses filled with rubble looking for the missing.The devistation was unbelievable.But truthfully it was alot of fun working together with all kinds of people for the "cause".I could go on and on with stories.I was 27 yrs old.and the partys oh man!!!! The police chief in Braintree closed all the package stores and bars I think it was on the thind day after the storm.

[goosefish]

I was living over in Hong Kong then, so I missed it. Saw Gloria, Bob, and the Perfect Storm, all three of those in Newport.

[islander]

I was a 21 year old seaman in the Coast Guard on Nantucket, 6 to 10"of snow, but it was all in drifts as the wind was gusting to over 90. I left the island that weekend and couldn't believe my eyes.

[ThomCat]

Left work in Providence, RI, at 3:00 PM for home in West Warwick, less than 10 miles. On the way, among other things, I pushed a few cars, made up a few new swears and scored the last package of peanut butter crackers at a thoroughly gutted Cumberland Farms. Made it home a mere 7 hours later walking the last 2 miles through 3 foot plus drifts. Any of you guys who know me will attest, drifts of those proportions are almost over my head. Anyway after almost 3 days of digging out, made it out in time to celebrate my 26th birthday doing the Arctic (downtown W.W. strip)crawl. Didn't have to watch out for cars, there weren't any. Good thing. A night like that would have killed me today!!!

[striperondafly]

I was 6 years old in NJ - I remeber a few big storms but not one in particular

[capecodder]

Was 11 yrs old. Grew up in Falmouth. I remember being unable to open the doors as drifts were higher. Once we dug out, we built tunnels through the yard in the snow. Also took a trip to our cottage in N. Truro (I think same time) and the snow/ice on the beach was over our heads with crakcks all in it. Like a maze. We had no idea it was coming. Were out to dinner at Golden Sails chinese in E. Falmouth when snow started. white out by the time we finished.

[snake slinger]

i was 7 years old i remember the snow was level with our front steps.my dad didnt make it home from work he was stuck for 3 days

[Adamfishes]

In 03 we got more snow then 78 but the winds weren't bad. So I'm sure there will be more of this weather to come. Esp with the global warming trends of spikes in either extremes of warm or cold.

[stripersnipr]

I lived in Scituate where I grew up for the 78 blizzard but take away the deadly tides and winds the blizzard of 05 here in Plymouth dumped a lot more snow than we saw in Scituate in 78.

[Rockfish9]

I was working for Lynn Porche Audi at the time,I left work at 10:AM driving a 1967 Dodge power wagon all wheel drive(former milatary vehicle) with a snow plow, it took me 4 hours to get home when it normaly was a 30 minute drive... I plowed snow for two days straight and did snow removal for a week... I made enough money, with my trade and a little of my savings to buy a brand new ford F 250 with a plow and paid cash!

[striprman]

Left Stoughton at noon and drove to Brockton. Didn't go to work until the next Monday. I'd say the snow was 36" when it all stopped.
Remember the wicked storm two weeks before the blizzard ? That one is in the books too.

[fishaholic18]

I-95's Exchange Street overpass in Pawtucket

[fishaholic18]

"Heavy snow tonight,tapering off tomorrow"

That's what the weather page of The Providence Journal said on Monday morning, Feb. 6, 1978.

Blizzard of '78: Storm statistics

Official snowfall: 28.6 inches at T.F. Green Airport, the National Weather Service measuring station. During the most intense 24 hours, 27.6 inches fell, a record dating to 1905.

Deepest Weather Service-listed unofficial snowfall: 54 inches, Woonsocket.

Least unofficial snowfall: 10 inches, Block Island.

Most intense snowfall: 3 inches/hour Feb. 6, 7 to 8 p.m.

Biggest wind gust: 58 knots, or 67 mph, Feb. 6, 8 p.m.

Duration: Began Feb. 6 at 10:10 a.m.; ended Feb. 7 at 10:44 p.m.

Deaths attributed to Blizzard: 21 (in Rhode Island).

Cars abandoned on Routes 95, 195 and 146: 1,950.

Abandoned cars towed from Providence streets: 3,000.

Drivers who spent first night in cars: 1,000.

Motorists rescued by Rhode Island National Guard: 2,968.

Children stranded overnight in schools: 900.

Shelters opened: 66.

Persons sheltered: 9,150.

Trips by National Guard ferrying doctors, nurses, medicine: 3,527.

Home, businesses losing electric power: 11,800.

U.S. military rescue force: 478 soldiers, 178 vehicles.

Pieces of equipment rented from Buffalo, N.Y.: 100.

City's initial estimate of snow-clearing force: 100 pieces.

City's later estimate of snow-clearing force: 8 pieces.

State of emergency declared: Feb. 6 at 5 p.m.

Providence reopened to business: Feb. 13

Cost to state: $6.6 million, expenses and lost taxes.

Total federal disaster assistance: $14,841,484.

Federal snow-removal aid: $4,272,116.

Food stamps: $7,665,768 to an estimated 90,000 people.

Lost wages, private sector: $30 million.

Workers who lost wages: 152,000.

Unemployment benefits paid: $8 million.

Homes damaged: 30.

Looting suspects charged: 25.

[whiplash]

Iwas in college in Boston ( Boston State College) and lived in Brookline in a second floor apt we jumped to get out to shovel the front enterance. Spent two days delivering meds to people on Xcountry skis out of the Kenmore Red Cross until some guy asked if I could swim- spent the next 5 days in a duk in Revere pulling people and pets out of flooded houses. Talk about friggen cold and wet. But something I'll never forget.