We had a turbulent weather week.
I was reading about the Blizzard of 1978. It was part of The National Weather Service's retrospective on some of the worst weather events. I lived through that one. It's etched in my memory. February 6th...it began. A five-day travail that affected millions.
I grew up in Rhode Island, ground zero for the blizzardy weather bomb that unloaded over us that week. Snow was predicted and it was supposed to get hairy but no one suspected how much and how fast. We were let out of school at 1:00, unusual for a New England school, where the bus drivers and other drivers are used to a bit of snow. But when it began snowing at 11 or 12, it started coming down fast and hard.
I was a high school senior, who drove to school from 8 miles away from my mother's house. My brother was a sophomore and he was with me. There was a hill a mile out of the turn from our school drive and I slid down it and spun once. I knew I would not make it the 8 miles to my mother's house, so I aimed for my father's home, a mile away.
We made it and I called my father immediately to let him know we were there. I asked him to come home, and stop at the grocery store first because it looked like we might be there a while. I'd peeked into the fridge and all I saw was prune juice, tomato juice, and some frozen dinners. I knew we'd need more than that, lol.
He came home but only brought more prune juice and two more frozen dinners, rofl. Thankfully his girlfriend brought more substantial provender.
And there we were. The snow came down at several inches per hour. The power went out. But my father had a kerosene heater and a huge fireplace, so we were warm at least. The snow piled up amazingly, we could not stop watching its level get higher and higher against the sliding glass door. The battery operated radio stated that the entire state was closed down, to stay off the roads and that the turnpike was clogged with stalled cars and even stalled rescue vehicles. The folks that were stuck inside their cars on the highway were in peril.
It wasn't just the snow. High winds actually hurricane force...waves swept homes away... heavy snow collapsed roofs.
We were trapped together. My father was not prepared for kids and having us stay there for days on end was difficult for him. There was no power, so no TV. The internet had not been invented yet. Just us. In the cold and the dark. We got on each other's nerves.
School was out for five days. Finally the roads were (barely) cleared enough for me to drove me and my brother home. And we put the event into our memories and looked ahead to spring.
A dinosaur snow sculpture someone in my town made, the snow was still pretty high even weeks later. Walking to my friend's house it was up to my thighs.
Here in the present day, we had wild weather in Georgia. Tornadoes and thunder and 6 inches of rain and wind and heat and humidity. We huddled in the hall at school, covering and protecting hundreds of children, as the tornado sirens went off and the sky got green. A lot of roads were washed out in our county. Now today we have a winter weather warning for 4 inches of snow. Go figure! Maybe it's February that comes in like a lion!
Have a wonderful weekend and stay safe wherever you are.
Retrospectives on the Blizzard of '78
New England Historical Society
15 Facts about the Blizzard of 1978
Weather.gov, Blizzard of 1978
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