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Blizzard of '78

40/70 Benchmark

By 40/70 Benchmark,
in New England

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#NoPoles

#NoPoles

Posted
Posted

I was born via c-section on Jan 18th. My mom's incision split open during the blizzard of 78. My parent consulted their doctor over the phone. He instructed my dad to go out to a CVS and get an antibacterial and those huge sized gauze and wraps. My parents had to call the police to get clearance to be on the roads. A few days after my mom got to the doctor, who took one look at her incision and said - ****, you really should have gone to the hospital. Anyway, we all lived. I'm 40, still waiting for my blizzard of 78.

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CoastalWx

CoastalWx

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

I was born via c-section on Jan 18th. My mom's incision split open during the blizzard of 78. My parent consulted their doctor over the phone. He instructed my dad to go out to a CVS and get an antibacterial and those huge sized gauze and wraps. My parents had to call the police to get clearance to be on the roads. A few days after my mom got to the doctor, who took one look at her incision and said - ****, you really should have gone to the hospital. Anyway, we all lived. I'm 40, still waiting for my blizzard of 78.

Holy crap. 

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Cold Miser

Cold Miser

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

I was born via c-section on Jan 18th. My mom's incision split open during the blizzard of 78. My parent consulted their doctor over the phone. He instructed my dad to go out to a CVS and get an antibacterial and those huge sized gauze and wraps. My parents had to call the police to get clearance to be on the roads. A few days after my mom got to the doctor, who took one look at her incision and said - ****, you really should have gone to the hospital. Anyway, we all lived. I'm 40, still waiting for my blizzard of 78.

WTF & holy sh*t!

All these years and you never shared that with us?  That is the ULTIMATE winter-weenie-birth for sure.

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Cold Miser said:

WTF & holy sh*t!

All these years and you never shared that with us?  That is the ULTIMATE winter-weenie-birth for sure.

You all know that the first Blizzard of 78 here was Jan 20th  so girlfriend saw 2 blizzards in the first 3 weeks of her precious life. Good Juju Di

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ORH_wxman

ORH_wxman

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Hey @ORH_wxman have you seen this from ORH wow wish you were there then 

 

Yeah I've seen some crazy pics of ORH in the '78 storm. I have always believed the 20.2" total is kind of bogus...It is extra suspicious because it is exactly 10.1" each day and the QPF was 1.01 each day....this tells me all of it was estimated days later. I've always believed based on the pics and other accounts that the total was probably closer to 27-30". But we'll never know for sure.

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah I've seen some crazy pics of ORH in the '78 storm. I have always believed the 20.2" total is kind of bogus...It is extra suspicious because it is exactly 10.1" each day and the QPF was 1.01 each day....this tells me all of it was estimated days later. I've always believed based on the pics and other accounts that the total was probably closer to 27-30". But we'll never know for sure.

WST reported 20 too and those ORH scenes are very much if not we had even more 

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Hambone

Hambone

Posted
Posted

I've told this tale here before...  If you look at the picture of the Route 138 off ramp.... I believe I was the last vehicle to clear that at around 7:30-8:00PM the first day of the storm.  I was 24 years old and left Moody Street in Waltham at around 3:00PM driving a 1974 MGB.  A guy from Brockton, driving a Datsun Pickup, loaded with expensive rug cleaning equipment (his part time gig) was right behind me.  It took us about 2 hours to get to the jam on 128 where the highway swings uphill and to the left.  We sat there, stuck for hours, listening to the radio... waiting for the jam to break.  Finally it was reported that the Staties were starting to rescue people from their vehicles.  I went back to my buddy's truck and told him I was going to make a try to drive around it and did he want to come with me.  He wouldn't abandon his truck, but said he would try to follow me.  I pulled off the highway and started plowing through the drifted snow, riding the torque curve in 1st or 2nd gear.. never really letting off on the gas.  I don't remember how far from the jackknifed tractor trailers I was when I started, but it seemed like it took forever to  pull even with the big jam.... I was dodging abandoned cars, signs all the way... finally I was past the backup, gunned it back onto the highway and was driving into pitch black, blinding, blowing snow.... When I made it to the top of the hill I checked my rear view mirror.... and there was nothing behind me but black. 

I managed to find the Rte 24 exit because of the blinking yellow light that was there... got onto 24 south and started coming upon random abandoned cars.  It was so dark out that it was hard to maintain location awareness.  Driving under the over passes gave me brief seconds of clear view.... but the visibility was down to nothing.  Eventually I saw a glow in the eastern sky that I figured had to be the Westgate Mall.  I got to the Rte 27 exit and the exit ramp had been blown clear of snow.  I got up on 27 (I had an aunt that lived nearby.  I figured if worse came to worse I could walk to her house.) and found a lonely state plow driving towards Main St.  I pulled in behind the plow, and followed him all the way to Main St and then down to the West Bridgewater line...

I pulled off Main St, onto Hayward Avenue... porpoising through the deep snow.. and somehow made it up to Copeland St... a mile later I pulled into my driveway... but could barely get the car off of the road...  My parents house was opposite the 9th fairway of a little public golf course called "White Pines" today and the snow was blowing up the fairway and dumping across the road like it was a snow fence... 

I got into the house.. a little over 6 hours from Waltham.  My parents were thrilled.  They had called the State Police to see what the highways were like and were told I was likely in the process of being evacuated to a safe place.  

 

My buddy from Brockton didn't make it home for 5 days.  His pickup truck was lousy in the snow and he got stuck opposite the big jam...  He sat there until about 11PM when the Staties picked him up on a snowmobile and took him to Morse Shoe Factory in Canton, where he and a couple hundred of his closest friends lived for the duration.  He said no one made it past him after he got stuck.

blizzardof78.jpg

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CoastalWx

CoastalWx

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My mom got stuck in that too and had to get off. She was teaching in Newton and trying to get back to Brockton as well. I’m also a fellow Brocktonian. She saw the jackknifed TTs prior to the big bend in Canton and got off in Westwood. She just remembered our neighbor trying to tell her to get off in Westwood when 128 is bad and take the backroads to Brockton. Of course she had no idea where she was going being new to the area. 

She mentioned having no idea where she was going, signs blotted out and having no visibility, not knowing if there was a cliff off the side of the road. She said she just kept driving and had no idea where she was heading. The roads were getting impassable and there were times she almost got stuck. Eventually 2 hours later she pulled over at a convent and just asked where she was. She was in Easton somehow and only a few miles from home. Talk about luck. She eventually made it home 5 hours after leaving Newton. Of course with no cell phones, my Dad was a mess wondering where the hell she was.

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codfishsnowman

codfishsnowman

Posted
Posted
On 1/20/2018 at 11:23 PM, #NoPoles said:

I was born via c-section on Jan 18th. My mom's incision split open during the blizzard of 78. My parent consulted their doctor over the phone. He instructed my dad to go out to a CVS and get an antibacterial and those huge sized gauze and wraps. My parents had to call the police to get clearance to be on the roads. A few days after my mom got to the doctor, who took one look at her incision and said - ****, you really should have gone to the hospital. Anyway, we all lived. I'm 40, still waiting for my blizzard of 78.

05? 15?

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Hambone said:

I've told this tale here before...  If you look at the picture of the Route 138 off ramp.... I believe I was the last vehicle to clear that at around 7:30-8:00PM the first day of the storm.  I was 24 years old and left Moody Street in Waltham at around 3:00PM driving a 1974 MGB.  A guy from Brockton, driving a Datsun Pickup, loaded with expensive rug cleaning equipment (his part time gig) was right behind me.  It took us about 2 hours to get to the jam on 128 where the highway swings uphill and to the left.  We sat there, stuck for hours, listening to the radio... waiting for the jam to break.  Finally it was reported that the Staties were starting to rescue people from their vehicles.  I went back to my buddy's truck and told him I was going to make a try to drive around it and did he want to come with me.  He wouldn't abandon his truck, but said he would try to follow me.  I pulled off the highway and started plowing through the drifted snow, riding the torque curve in 1st or 2nd gear.. never really letting off on the gas.  I don't remember how far from the jackknifed tractor trailers I was when I started, but it seemed like it took forever to  pull even with the big jam.... I was dodging abandoned cars, signs all the way... finally I was past the backup, gunned it back onto the highway and was driving into pitch black, blinding, blowing snow.... When I made it to the top of the hill I checked my rear view mirror.... and there was nothing behind me but black. 

I managed to find the Rte 24 exit because of the blinking yellow light that was there... got onto 24 south and started coming upon random abandoned cars.  It was so dark out that it was hard to maintain location awareness.  Driving under the over passes gave me brief seconds of clear view.... but the visibility was down to nothing.  Eventually I saw a glow in the eastern sky that I figured had to be the Westgate Mall.  I got to the Rte 27 exit and the exit ramp had been blown clear of snow.  I got up on 27 (I had an aunt that lived nearby.  I figured if worse came to worse I could walk to her house.) and found a lonely state plow driving towards Main St.  I pulled in behind the plow, and followed him all the way to Main St and then down to the West Bridgewater line...

I pulled off Main St, onto Hayward Avenue... porpoising through the deep snow.. and somehow made it up to Copeland St... a mile later I pulled into my driveway... but could barely get the car off of the road...  My parents house was opposite the 9th fairway of a little public golf course called "White Pines" today and the snow was blowing up the fairway and dumping across the road like it was a snow fence... 

I got into the house.. a little over 6 hours from Waltham.  My parents were thrilled.  They had called the State Police to see what the highways were like and were told I was likely in the process of being evacuated to a safe place.  

 

My buddy from Brockton didn't make it home for 5 days.  His pickup truck was lousy in the snow and he got stuck opposite the big jam...  He sat there until about 11PM when the Staties picked him up on a snowmobile and took him to Morse Shoe Factory in Canton, where he and a couple hundred of his closest friends lived for the duration.  He said no one made it past him after he got stuck.

blizzardof78.jpg

Westgate Mall rd

FB_IMG_1517082002413.jpg

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

My mom got stuck in that too and had to get off. She was teaching in Newton and trying to get back to Brockton as well. I’m also a fellow Brocktonian. She saw the jackknifed TTs prior to the big bend in Canton and got off in Westwood. She just remembered our neighbor trying to tell her to get off in Westwood when 128 is bad and take the backroads to Brockton. Of course she had no idea where she was going being new to the area. 

She mentioned having no idea where she was going, signs blotted out and having no visibility, not knowing if there was a cliff off the side of the road. She said she just kept driving and had no idea where she was heading. The roads were getting impassable and there were times she almost got stuck. Eventually 2 hours later she pulled over at a convent and just asked where she was. She was in Easton somehow and only a few miles from home. Talk about luck. She eventually made it home 5 hours after leaving Newton. Of course with no cell phones, my Dad was a mess wondering where the hell she was.

Brockton ,no first floor, car buried

FB_IMG_1517082049462.jpg

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Ginx snewx

Ginx snewx

Posted
Posted

My story.

Attending URI as a sophomore.  Taking a met class. The difax was indicating a major storm. My met professor Dr James Haven insisted it was going to be the biggest blizzard of our lives. He suggested any one who could go home should. At 11 am the winds were already gusting in the 30s on the open quad when It snow started.  I immediately headed to find my girlfriend in class at Edwards Auditorium. We headed towards Westerly a 20 minute trip. I chose the 138 to 95 route because I knew it would be easier, proved to be a very wise choice as Rt 1 closed almost immediately and people were stranded. The snow immediately became very very heavy and dense. Can't describe it as I have yet to witness it again but the consistency was like cement right before it cures,  not wet but dense. I believe that was the reason everyone got stuck. Anyways the trip home normally 20 mins took over an hour. By the time I got home it was full on blizzard and remained that way for the next 36 hrs. The night was as fierce as it gets complete with a 5 hr period of basically a severe Tstorm. Sleet mixed in but it could have been hail. My girlfriend stayed the night and well 9 months later our blizzard baby son was born. I left school to get a full time job and benefits. The blizzard of 78 completely changed my life. No complaints just a fact. After it was over we were able to get back to URI, school was closed for 8 days  I jumped out of a 3rd floor dorm into a massive drift. The Pub on campus stayed open 24 hrs a day and it was the most insane party ever. Judging by the photos I had, which were lost in a flood at my parents in 83  I would say on level 36 inches would be a very good estimate. In the open farm areas like URI drifts easily reached 2 stories and in some places at the Kingston Turf Farms there were 30 ft drifts against the woodland of their miles long fields.

 

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