Thirty years ago this week the Northeast experienced one of the most powerful blizzards in memory: snow up to four feet, lines of abandoned cars, lives lost and massive damage to the coast. But for some, the storm was a time of fun… days off work and school, unscheduled bonding, adventures and family fun. We’ll talk with Granite Staters about their memories and hear your stories too.
- John Clayton, Senior Reporter and columnist for the Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News and author of six books on New Hampshire
- Neal Strauss, Meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.
- Don Kent, longtime weatherman for WBZ-TV in Boston who now lives in Laconia. Don was on the air for three days during the Blizzard of ’78
- John Parsons, a secondary school teacher living in Durham
- Bill Cavanaugh, who was part of a Coast Guard rescue mission during the blizzard to save the Pilot Boat Can-Do and check on the oil tanker Global Hope that ran aground in Gloucester Harbor. Later a book would be written about their experiences called “Ten Hours Until Dawn”.
- Ric Werme, resident of Boscawen, who maintains a Blizzard of '78 website
In 1978, I was living in Brookline,Mass. I had moved to the Boston area after graduationg from college in 1977. I had a job in Taunton Mass. and commuted from Brookline with a friend. We left for work at 6:30 in the morning. Two weeks before the "big storm" we had left at 6:30 to get to our jobs at the Paul A dever state school (the kind of institutions that no longer exist in this country.) Many people did not make it in that day and we had minor accident due to the horrendous driving conditioins. The day the big storm hit, the gods were smiling on me as I was quite sick with a cold and had called in sick. Had I gone to work, I would have been one of the cars in the 10 miles of stuck and abandoned cars on rte. 128. Instead I was home in bed. My chinese neighbors brought me some food and I was unable to leave Boston or go to work for a week. No one was able to drive in Boston. I remember walking around on the streets and people looking for their cars by digging down to fing them buried in the snow. I was just 22 years old and during that week I went to the movies by myself for the first time. I saw the Goodbye Girl with an up and coming actor named "Richard Dreyfuss." And we all know what happened to him. Those memories are still very vivid in my mind. I move to N.H. the following year and have lived here ever since.
I was 12 in Nashua and I remember being sore from shoveling and having to stay at my aunt's house because my parents were 'stuck' in Aruba! That was and still has been the most extensive vacation my parent's have ever taken. I remember having to take them heavy coats and boots when we went to pick them up upon their return.
We were living in Danielson, CT near RI during the storm. I measured 40 inches of snow in my back yard. I could not get to work for 3 days since Gov. Grasso banned all non emergency vehicles from the CT roads.
No one has mentioned that the name of the storm was Larry, a litle bit of trivia.
Rich
Portsmouth
Some random blizzard memories from my days in Rhode Island:
Looking from my window at work, seeing the writing on the mall (Westminster), leaving Providence early for the 45 minute drive to Narragansett, arriving three hours later – saw what was happening on Route 1 in the nick of time, got off onto 138.
The appalling, astounding violence of gale-driven snow in my face outside my house at night, helping a struggling motorist.
A week of unplowed roads and snow-bound cabin fever. Not so bad, really.
Brown University students building ski jumps down College Street.
At least one birth on interstate 195 between Providence and Fall River.
The indulgent smile of a plow operator brought in from Buffalo, interviewed on television. "You had a pretty good storm" – nothing new to him, apparently.
The amusing Punch and Judy show in Providence, with mayor "Buddy" Cianci and Governor Garrahy accusing each other of not being able to find the National Guard snow plows.