Blizzard of ‘78 left area snowblind 35 years ago

The win­ter of 1977–78 will be remem­bered by those who lived through it.

Who will ever for­get the Great Bliz­zard of Jan. 26–27, 1978? It was described by then Gov. James Rhodes as a “killer search­ing for vic­tims,” and by weath­er­men as the grand­fa­ther of all Ohio storms. So much snow was dumped dur­ing the win­ter the ves­tiges didn’t dis­ap­pear until well into April.

The first major storm after a pleas­ant, nor­mal Octo­ber and Novem­ber, came on Dec. 5 with high winds. Six inches of wet heavy snow fell, clos­ing plants and schools. The storm con­tin­ued into Tues­day with more snow and drift­ing. Thurs­day brought more snow, and what had been shov­eled out before, drifted shut.

The Belle­vue Gazette said, “There was only one full day of school that week and that day, Thurs­day, would have been abbre­vi­ated if the bus dri­vers could have been con­tacted to pick up the chil­dren early.”

The weather mod­er­ated and a high of 48 on Dec. 17 was like a heat wave. The rest of the month and the early part of Jan­u­ary were nor­mal for the period with occa­sional flur­ries and on warmer days, rain.

The sec­ond big storm of that win­ter came on Sun­day, Jan. 8, leav­ing four inches of the white stuff. Roads were snow-covered and slip­pery with a lot of drifting.

It was Wednes­day before out­side mail could be brought into Belle­vue. Res­i­dents were asked to clear their walks for the mail­men, and those on rural deliv­ery were requested to clear a path to their mailboxes.

The National Guard aided in snow removal work in Huron and Erie coun­ties. Snow­mo­bil­ers on Mon­day and Tues­day aided Belle­vue Police in res­cu­ing stranded motorists.

Many were placed overnight in local homes, but two who couldn’t find a place to stay spent the night in the city jail.

After being closed for three days, schools reopened on Thurs­day, Jan. 12, and mid-term exams were taken the fol­low­ing week.

At least three more inches of snow was pre­dicted for the night of Jan. 12. Local gro­cery stores were get­ting deliv­er­ies and peo­ple were com­ing in to stock up on food before the antic­i­pated storm came.

By Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Jan. 14, blow­ing and drift­ing snow brought warn­ings from law enforce­ment agen­cies to stay home. By 8 a.m. many cars were reported stalled in drifts.

Trav­el­ers’ advi­sories con­tin­ued through the week­end and more snow swept in on Tues­day, Jan. 17, send­ing chil­dren home at noon from Belle­vue and area schools. All roads were reported pass­able but haz­ardous with seri­ous drift­ing reported.

On Fri­day, Jan. 20, The Belle­vue Gazette head­line read — “Snow Par­a­lyzes Belle­vue Area.” Some streets in Belle­vue were becom­ing nar­row because of parked cars and high snow banks. Safety Ser­vice Direc­tor Tom Swartz said, “We can’t plow where cars are parked.”

On Tues­day, The Belle­vue Hos­pi­tal was reported back to nor­mal after the par­a­lyz­ing win­ter storm.

Dur­ing the storm the cor­ri­dors were over­flowed with patients. The hos­pi­tal was short-handed. Sev­eral local physi­cians were on vaca­tion while other staff mem­bers were unable to get to the hos­pi­tal. The doctor’s ser­vice from Toledo, which helped staff the emer­gency room, couldn’t get to Belle­vue. Local doc­tors pitched in to help so there would be at least one doc­tor in the hospital.

At the city coun­cil meet­ing on Mon­day night, mem­bers voted to rec­om­mend coun­cil pass a res­o­lu­tion for stricter enforce­ment of the snow ban ordi­nance by hav­ing Belle­vue Police pass out more citations.

Safety-Service Direc­tor Swartz said tow­ing ille­gally parked cars was the “last resort,” because there was a short­age of space to store them. Coun­cil­man Robert Ladd had said peo­ple weren’t coop­er­at­ing and cit­i­zens should be made aware the city was seri­ous about parked cars on streets dur­ing a snow ban.

“How­ever, all that had gone before was but a pre­lude to the “big­gie” — the killer bliz­zard was to strike in another two days, Thurs­day, Jan. 26,” summed up The Belle­vue Gazette.

(To be continued)

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Belle­vue His­to­rian Bill Oddo writes a weekly col­umn for The Belle­vue Gazette.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Jan 21 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.