The Blizzard of ‘78 – 52 Ancestors # 16, Storms

With our winter finally finished here in New England, I’ve had enough storms for now and we’re enjoying Spring (post nor’easter season and before hurricane season).  However, for the topic of storms I decided to write about my own experiences in what came to be known as the Blizzard of ‘78.  This past February was the 40th anniversary of the biggest storm I have ever been through, even though there have been other bad ones and a fair number billed as “Storm of the Century” by weather-casters.  I was married and living in an apartment in Newton, going to graduate school in Boston.  My husband was a young lawyer in Concord, MA.

It started with a forecast for a storm, to start by rush-hour Monday morning (oh joy!). The snow didn’t start that soon however, and people saw it as just another snow storm in the Boston area.  It was being a snowy winter in the area, and there had been a storm toward the end of January that dropped 21 inches of snow in Massachusetts although only rain had been predicted.  The general predictions for the storm coming at us February 6 were for snow in the range of 10-12 inches.  It was just another winter nor’easter – we all thought.  Besides, the weathermen were notoriously inaccurate.  And no one was suggesting that we should all stay home.

So on that Monday, February 6, I headed into Boston to my classes and school work, taking the subway line that was close to our apartment.  My husband got in the car and headed for Concord.  I wasn’t particularly worried, since I was on public transportation, and my husband grew up in Syracuse, NY where they had plenty of snow.

The snow actually started falling about 10 or so in the morning.  A gentle (at first) snowfall that was just another winter day in Boston.  This changed over the next few hours though and by early afternoon the snow was falling at a prodigious rate – by report it fell at up to 2 inches an hour in some places.  Snow began to accumulate and people began to look out windows thinking about leaving for home early.  Then state employees in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were told to go home (an unusual occurrence).  They all started on their commutes home and rush hour got started early on the highways.  The snow kept coming down and the winds got fierce.  I haven’t seen any estimates of how many people actually reached home safely, but many didn’t.  The reports are that at least 3000 cars and 500 trucks were stranded in the drifts on Route 128, a highway that circles around the Boston area and was (and is) a major commuting route.  This site from the Boston Globe archives shows pictures of the outcome in our area.

With most people at my school starting home, I joined the rest and headed home on the subway.  It was slow and crowded in the city, but the tracks were usable and the trains were running at that point.  I had an uneventful trip to my stop and walked down the hill to our apartment house.  My husband had a somewhat more exciting commute home, not leaving Concord until later than he should have.  His route home was crowded with cars and got slower and slower, but he knew from experience that he didn’t dare stop if he wanted to get home at all.  He saw cars slewed off the highway, on the side of the road, but was able to keep finding a path where he could keep moving.  Eventually, he made it home.  We were among the lucky ones.  Others got stuck at work, or in their cars on the highway.  There were deaths when the snow  buried the cars or their tailpipes.  People walked off the road, or were rescued by cross-country skiers, etc.   People who lived close to the highway took in those who had no place to go.

The worst of the storm was that it stalled over eastern Massachusetts and kept dropping snow for somewhere around 33 hours, which in combination with the winds made for treacherous conditions everywhere.  By Tuesday night it finally stopped snowing and on Wednesday we could finally try to get out of the house.  The front door was completely blocked by a snow drift, so we struggled through the snow from the back door with our shovels to begin trying to dig out.  There was a travel ban in the state, with only essential personnel allowed on the roads (hospital personnel mostly).  Our governor was shown on TV in a sweater, asking everyone to stay home until further notice while the road crews and emergency vehicles tried to start clearing..

A day later my husband ventured to walk from our house to the center of town to see if he could add some food to our dwindling supply.  There wasn’t much available at the little grocery or the deli – of course they had gotten no deliveries since early on Monday.  The day after that we trekked up the hill to the larger grocery and were able to get some basics.  People were out on cross-country skis in the middle of the usually busy main road we were on.   There were scenes on television from the local channels showing people skiing down the middle of the main streets in Boston.  It was an unexpected time out for everyone, a snow day (and then a snow week) for all of us, not just the schoolchildren who usually got time off with snow.