Blizzard of 1977- 40 Years ago today

[Metalman 55]

Perhaps some of you may have heard about the blizzard of 77 that pummeled Western NY State & Southern Ont, an unforgettable experience for those that witnessed it. Blizzard only lasted a day or 2 with the gale force winds but the cleanup was immense.

Lake Erie froze up early that early winter & there were several snowfalls on it once the ice formed totaling a foot or more of loose snow & come Jan 28th 1977 some gale force winds whipped up depositing what had been laying on top of the ice on inland communities near the east end of the lake. There were reports of the snow drifting up to more than 20' deep in spots.

Heavy equipment was brought in to move snow from both rural & municipal streets, as it was beyond the capabilities of the equipment normally used.

I ran both a D8H & D8K on both in town & rural roads pushing banks back & the snow clearing effort went on for about 6 weeks.

 

[mowingman]

I remember it well. I was there in Buffalo. I lived in the Town of Tonawanda, about a mile from the lake. We had a drift across the front yard and driveway about 16' high. Took me a whole day to dig out my Jeep. Of course, even when I got it dug out, you couldn't travel anywhere. I moved to Texas about 6 months later. Had enough of that snow to last a lifetime.

 

[Metalman 55]

Yeah, there was lots of surprises under those snow banks during that storm. I was dispatched to clear snow on some rural roads & at an intersection there was some real high banks from the side road where it met up with the then opened more traveled road & when I cut down layer by layer into the intersection, at about the level where there was about 4' of depth left after making a pass I looked behind me & saw a "black hole" in the snow. I knew instantly what it was; a car with the roof missing! Didn't even feel it (an early 70's Vega) when going over it with the D8K! My blood ran cold fearing what I may find inside, but luckily the car had been abandoned a few days prior. Needless to say, the car was totaled. I still have the newspaper clipping around here somewhere.......

 

[DMiller]

We had a similar condition in MO in '82, '92 and two years ago. Was a snowplow running full tilt along I-70, caught a edge and slung it into the ditch, they sent a rubber tired end loader to which it too ended up in the ditch. Neighbor watching the whole mess fired off the D7E he had and rescued both of them onto the outer road. Have heard the horror stories from MI of plows taking the sides off stalled autos in snowbanks and the latest where a plow got tapped by a semi on a UT highway sending that one down a 300 foot slope.

 

[td25c]

I sure remember the blizzard that hit us in 1978 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1978

Crazy amount of snow ,wind & cold . Snow drifted up to the roof of the house !

 

[Metalman 55]

Yes, I heard about the 1978 Blizzard as well, although it did not effect us, about 100 miles West of us it went through & they say the wind/snow may have been as bad or worse than what we had.

Here is the 40 year old report of the bulldozer operator who sheared the roof off of the Vega like a Campbell's Soup can..........we won't mention any names though!

 

[rubberfish]

I'm not sure I remember that storm. In '77 I would have been 11 and living in Nepean.

Thanks for posting the pics and generating some childhood memories.

 

[watglen]

Blizzard of '77 was one of my best childhood memories.

 

[oarwhat]

I remember it like it was yesterday . It was a bad winter before that. That day it wasn't supposed to be bad. We were in my mom's garage and my buddy's sister calls and says it's really bad. We're like yea right . Well the garage is 40 ft from the house and we can't see the house. We took the car we were working on back to the owner. Then crawled our way back home. On the way a guy flags is down to tow his car. It was my neighbor. I said get in leave the car. He says I'm not leaving it. I said get in or we're gone ,and he jumped in. I parked my Jeep Wagoneer in the driveway where I knew it would blow clear. The next morning it was bright and sunny. I figured no problem just take my time and plow out my places. I've never seen snow that dense. It was like sand. A car could almost drive on it. Almost impossible to plow with a pickup truck. Most cars left out in the wind would be packed solid with snow under the hood. The stupid air pumps the had on those cars all froze up. We would cut those belts to get the cars started. I think it was the next day and it started blowing again. It was unbelievable.

 

[Metalman 55]

Yeah.........I remember with my car as well, under the hood was packed solid with snow. I think they said it snowed about 20 to 30 consecutive days after that storm hit, some days just a few flurries, some days heavier. Never seen a winter like it around here. Water mains buried down 5+ plus froze & burst in places.

 

[watglen]

Oarwhat mentioned how hard the snow was. I remember that too. Our road was left for a couple weeks to get plowed. We had a small International 500E crawler and you could drive on top of about 4-5' of snow on the road. Truck plows spent hours bashing their way through a couple hundred feet of it, then gave up. Finally, a big wheel loader and a pair of graders came out and spent a couple days working at it. In the end it was 2 weeks to get the road open again. During that period, snowmobiles became the way to get around.

 

[Metalman 55]

Yes, as mentioned earlier in the thread, I was running a D8K on some local side roads & that machine could peel away the high drifts in layers from the top down, running right on top of 8-10' drifts (weight is approx. 35 tons). The snow was unbelievable hard.