First time I've ever seen snow falling!

[Philip Gonzales]

Snow Stories!

I lived through the Blizzard of '77 in Buffalo, NY. 12 ft of snow that year. It snowed every day for 30 straight days. Wind chill was frequently 70 below 0 F.

People would get stuck and abandon their cars on the spot, whether in the middle of the road or blocking an intersection. Later, the big snow plows simply pushed them aside.

To clear the roads, abandoned cars were simply moved to any nearby empty lot. And with very little tracking of the car's new location. Meanwhile, a shit load of snow had to be cleared. Front loaders and dump trucks were used to haul away snow. They dumped the snow anywhere they could, often in the same empty lots that contained the towed cars. Many cars were buried, lost until the spring melt. Only then did owners learn where their car had been for the last 2 to 3 months!

I remember walking on the top crust of snow, and occasionally seeing a car antenna sticking up through the snow. A completely buried car wasn't uncommon, esp on the side streets.

College was closed for many days (and it takes a LOT of snow for school to be cancelled in Buffalo!). So many students living near campus, and no classes. What are college kids to do? Our hardship was: All the beer flew off store shelves. Then the liquor stores emptied out. Fortunately, we managed to buy kegs of beer for several "Blizzard Parties". Toilet paper became a valued commodity. And milk. And fuel oil for home heating.

Driving was outlawed for many days, except for emergency situations. (getting a keg qualified, we reasoned). If you owned a 4 wheel drive vehicle, you were required to report to the police, and help ferry medicine to people, take 'em for doctor visits, rescue people who ran out of fuel oil for their furnace, take people to the emergency room, give rides to nurses and doctors so they could get to their work shift, etc.

Some folks who got their cars stuck in snow decided to stay in their cars, with the engine running and heater on. Bad choice. When snow piled up, or when the wind packed snow under their car, the Carbon Monoxide entered the car's cabin. Several died.

Buffalonians are hardy folks, and this boy from Long Island, NY was impressed (by the people and snow).
Yet life went on.

I worked in a bar at the time. For days and days, the bar was always packed. The crowds far exceeded any normal weekend crowd. And we housed many customers overnight, because they had no way of getting home. Luckily, the kitchen didn't run out of food.

Other cities sent snow removal equipment. eg: Lotsa gear came down from Toronto.

Fire hydrants were buried in the snow banks at the side of the road, from the plowing. The fire dept had a real challenge battling house fires. The amount of house fires increased, due to people using portable heaters to keep their house warm.

Jay-walking was greatly reduced. Mid-street, it was almost impossible to climb over the snow banks to reach the road. Crossing at intersections was never so popular!

That was snow!

Fastb

Wow that definitely sounds like an adventure!

 

[ThomasPI]

Late to the party but I’ve lived in FL for 25 years and have seen snow twice. This past Saturday was one of those occasions. Couldn’t believe it, roads closed, black ice and a lot of wrecks. !

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

in Shenzhen, never snow. here still have 20 degrees now.

 

[Fastb]

LOL!

In FL (and many other places), a little snow or ice is a friggin' disaster.

I'll cut the drivers some slack: No all-season tires.
But I'll hole 'em accountable: They don't know how to drive 1) in slippery conditions, 2) brake early and lightly, 3) how to steer into a skid, 4) how to use the brake pedal or a steering wheel jiggle to check traction (road-pack snow has traction when cold, but is snotty-slick from 31 to 34F), 5) brake while going straight, 6) don't ever brake while making a turn, 7) leave more distance to the car in front, 8) yadda, yadda, yadda.

Okay, so I can drive, even drive fast, in the snow. But I learned through driving in those conditions, and most drivers in warmer places don't get that chance. My point isn't to lord my "abilities" over warmer climate folks, like in Florida.

I now live in Seattle, and people here can't handle snow. Add the hilly Seattle terrain to the mix, and driving amongst the locals can get down right hairy.

My point:
- people in snowy areas take personal responsibility when they lose control of their car in snow/ice, or they go off the road.
- people in non-snowy areas don't take as much responsibility. And other Seattle-ites will nod sympathetically, letting the driver off-the-hook.
Eg:
- "It was Black Ice! Invisible!"
-- Me: Hmmm: So you had no idea what traction you had? Not all ice is visible, eg: after a fog on a freezing night.
-- Audience: "I hate black ice! There was nothing you could do!"

And many other examples, of me trying to explain to Seattle-ites to not do items 1 thru 8 above. It's really odd. Like "I've always driven this way, I'm a good driver, and you can't expect better! THERE'S A GOD DAMN INCH OF SNOW OUT THERE!"

YMMV!

PS: We considered a road impassible when it was as high as the door sills of the car. This cam site teaches us how to overcome challenges. The audience usually has an open mind. My Seattle and Fla experiences showed me an "open mind" that's willing to learn is sorta scarce...

Sorry for the long reply.....

Fastb

 

[Fastb]

in Shenzhen, never snow. here still have 20 degrees now

Andy,
LOL! 20C is 68F!
That's nice and warm!
It's winter here, and I'm only heating the house to 65F (18.3C)
Oil furnace, fuel is expensive.
Dressing warmly is the solution, a lesson learned from my story above, about the legendary "Buffalo Blizzard of '77"

You guys can google images on you own. But here's a few that struck a chord with me. Pic is worth 1k words:

I like this one, a car dug out. The city used the same empty lots for 1) abandoned cars and 2) putting snow removed from streets.
There was so much frigging snow, they didn't know what to do with it.
They started dumping it into the Niagara river, to send it to Niagara Falls. But using local empty lots was expedient!

The City shut down. Highways impassible.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Andy,
LOL! 20C is 68F!
That's nice and warm!
It's winter here, and I'm only heating the house to 65F (18.3C)
Oil furnace, fuel is expensive.
Dressing warmly is the solution, a lesson learned from my story above, about the legendary "Buffalo Blizzard of '77"

You guys can google images on you own. But here's a few that struck a chord with me. Pic is worth 1k words:

I like this one, a car dug out. The city used the same empty lots for 1) abandoned cars and 2) putting snow removed from streets.
There was so much frigging snow, they didn't know what to do with it.
They started dumping it into the Niagara river, to send it to Niagara Falls. But using local empty lots was expedient!

The City shut down. Highways impassible.

Woo, never see such big snow in my life. Lol...China is very big , some area very cold (near Russia)but some places still summer now(south china )
These 2 little dogs are happy for the weather

 

[Kawboy12R]

12ft in one winter? I forget what we had three winters ago but it was over 18 feet and most of it came in a bit over 6 weeks with no thaws. We got one to three feet at a time about twice a week but usually in blizzard form. Full sized road graders (not the tiny ones) with huge drift busters on the front were getting fetched up ramming drifts repeatedly at speed.

Here's a link to Rick Mercer on the subject. He's a comedian but he hit it right on the money-

Here's a few pics, but we got more snow after this pic set was taken- 25 Truly Terrifying Pictures Of The Snow In Eastern Canada Right Now

Here're some satellite pics showing how bad 2015 was- This year's satellite images show so much green compared to last year's snow
The only colour you can see from the satellite photos comes from the evergreen trees.

Here's a fun one of a train breaking some drifts, but we had much worse ones than what the video shows-

I wish I could find the one of the road grader hammering over and over and over trying to open up a road on PEI.

 

[looney2ns]

I went through similar in the Blizzard of 78 in Bloomington, In.
It was about a week before life came back to normal.
I worked at RCA corp at the time, and remember 1500 night shift workers remained trapped at the plant for 4 days.
Blizzard of 1978

 

[Fastb]

Kawboy12R: Interesting videos!

looney2ns: Your link caused me to look for on-line info, instead of just relying on my memory. Some tidbits from Wikipedia Blizzard of '77 - Wikipedia

A fire broke out at Whitney Place and Virginia Street, in the City of Buffalo, on Friday evening. Fire trucks rammed through stalled cars in an attempt to get to the scene and fire hoses were stretched two to three blocks to reach the fire, as that is as far as the fire trucks were able to make it. The National Guard assisted in taking firemen to the scene in four-wheel drive vehicles.


The weather hampered the ability to fight the fire. Attempts to disconnect hoses to move them resulted in the water freezing and bursting the hoses; Since the street drains were blocked with snow, runoff water from the fire rose to the running boards on the fire department's pumpers. When this water froze, it required jackhammers to extricate the pumpers. Hoses also had to be removed with jackhammers. Some fire truck pumpers stalled in the snow when wind blew into the engines or they ran out of fuel. Since their design necessitated the use of water instead of antifreeze as a coolant, the water in the pumper froze and ruined them.


The fire was eventually extinguished, but not before six or seven houses were destroyed and 50 people left homeless.Virginia Street and Whitney Place were closed for more than two weeks following the fire due to vehicles stuck in the ice. Firemen used snowmobiles to rescue trapped people, and to transport nurses and doctors to the hospitals; they also used four-wheel drive vehicles to deliver medicine.


On Friday, volunteers on four-wheel drive vehicles and snowmobiles delivered food for the Salvation Army. The Red Cross opened eight shelters in Erie County, New York, on Friday, and snowmobile clubs provided volunteers to deliver food, blood and medicine. Snowmobiles were also used to rescue people from the Skyway, as well as from another expressway.

By midnight Friday, an estimated 2,000 cars were stranded on Main Street and about 8,000 on other streets in the City of Buffalo. By Saturday morning, visibility improved and the City sent their plows back out. The many abandoned cars made their job more difficult. By 6:00 am, Buffalo's Commissioner of Streets had 30 private tow trucks removing vehicles; later in the day, the number would rise to 50. Saturday afternoon, dump trucks and payloaders dumped snow into the Niagara River.

On Saturday, blizzard conditions prevailed and the Buffalo Courier-Express did not publish for the first time in its 143-year history


The above made me realize the storm was more epic than I knew back then. I was busy working at the bar and having various adventures.

The rental house I shared with 4 other students was not well insulated. We turned up the thermostat. The old furnace couldn't handle it, and failed. We all stayed with other friends. We left the water trickling from all the faucets, in an unsuccessful effort to prevent freezing. Later, then the water pipes in the house froze.

The house was uninhabitable for days & days. Heating repair outfits prioritized their work. Since we had alternate places to stay, we were low on their list, below elderly folks with nowhere to go, shelters, and places that housed lotsa people. Plus, the burst pipes had to be repaired. I returned to the cold house frequently, to get more clothes for work and clean clothes. Doing laundry was postponed until I would visit the college campus, and do laundry in the dorms..

I remember seeing a dog sled team pulling a toboggan up a big street. The toboggan was filled with supplies from one of the few supermarkets still open .

I friend and I went looking for adventure, and to escape "cabin fever". Driving was outlawed, except for "approved" vehicles. We jumped on the back of a slow moving oil truck, and rode around. Lotsa great scenes, through several neighborhoods. We later hitchiked a ride with a guy in a 4 wheel drive vehicle. He had to deliver some medicine. The interstate was closed, but many surface streets were impassible. And the streets had so many people trying to flag him down. He rarely stopped, for fear of getting swarmed. Some people were getting desperate.

Even during the blizzard, the interstate was being plowed. Rescued people could then drive on the closed interstate, to safety. The exits were plowed, but not the entrance ramps. So the guy with the 4 wheeler drove the wrong way, and entered the interstate from an exit. Traffic was light enough to allow some wrong-way driving.

For years afterward, when chatting with someone new, the inevitable question would come up: "Where were you for the Blizzard of '77?"

A "Bucket List" adventure, but not one I sought out.....

Fastb

 

[Fastb]

Snow blower? We barely have snow plows!

No snowblowers in Seattle. Small homeowner models, or even city owned.
Seattle's approach to snow is "We'll wait until it melts!"
They have a few plows with sanders on the back.

Lotta "green" folks out here. The city opinion was:
"we don't want to spread salt on the roads. Bad for environment, and most streets drain to lakes & streams, then run to the salt water."
"the salmon and orca whales are dwindling as it is already!"

One winter it snowed for several days, totalling 3" - 4" accumulation. And stayed below freezing for a week. When snow falls on a sanded street, it defeats the sand. (but a sand/salt mix keeps working)
The sand clogged Seattle's drains.
The roads remained icy.
An uproar.

The city changed back to a sand/salt mix......

 

[looney2ns]

Their now using a beat juice mix to pretreat our roads.

 

[Fastb]

beat juice mix to pretreat our roads.

I learn something every day!
Thanks.
I checked into it, and found that mollases and cheese-making byproducts are also used in some states.

 

[58chev]

Their now using a beat juice mix to pretreat our roads.

It also makes a heck of a mess of the vehicles on the road.