The Great Blizzard of 1977
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- I was inspired by SabersFan85 to make this.
In case someone is wondering if I picked this up, yes, I know I spelled "Broadcast" wrong.
This presentation is in memory of all those who lived through and died in the great blizzard of 1977 in Pennsylvania and New York State.
I would like to thank my grandfather, Ralph Jones, who lived through and saw the whole thing, for taping the original "brodcast" which you are about to hear
Ah the good old days. I remember this like it was yesterday. I was 11 and loved every minute of it. Now, not so much.....
Ah yes, back when we had man made global cooling and the coming of an ice age. Now we are all going roast and drown because of warming. Please note sarcasm.
What an awesome piece of history. Major props to the uploader. I love old broadcasts!
My dad and the rest of my family made it through this in buffalo! Glad to hear of this now! Thanks bondfan91!
My son was born during this blizzard.... THAT was an interesting task
I remember my cats using the snowdrifts to walk up to my bedroom window. We tried to keep them in but they were insistent about going out. They changed their minds QUICKLY.. :)
Kelly Lawler I was in North Buffalo we didn't have those snowdrifts, what a crazy storm it snowed every day in January. I also remember the whole country calling Buffalo SNOW CAPITAL OF USA
Fantastic post! Thank you! I remember it well from here in Ohio. Those two winters were unlike anything before or since. The pictures were tremendous! I'll never forget the young people nearly touching the traffic signal. Wow!
Caine Alexander It really was a bad storm 80 MPH winds, it snowed everyday in January, to bad Buffalo still has to deal with 10-12 feet every winter from Lake Erie. To make it worse we have to wait till July to swim because the Lake freezes over every year. Those pictures are cool but people were trapped in there houses because of those snow drifts. That 77 Blizzard people were afraid of Buffalo like people were afraid of the movie JAWS. Buffalo is lucky Niagara Falls is close for vistors
I was 11 yrs. and living in the Town of Tonawanda then. Our hedges and cars were buried. It was trippy. It was days of radio like this transmission. People needing help and thankfully others able and willing to do so. It could have been so much worse had people not helped their neighbors. God bless all who did and made a difference then and whenever there's a need, since and before this time. I was really proud for the most part of the city and people.
Thank you for taking the time to compile this for all of us that lived thru it. Deeply appreciated...
I lived through this and I can tell you it was amazing and really scary!!!
I was a freshman at SUNY Oswego during this storm. Typical 18 year olds, rather than being concerned with the storm, instead we were jumping off the roof into snow banks, and making road trips to IGA for beer (18 was the drinking age back then.) - Great memories
Ill never forget this! I am happy it's loaded on RUclips so I was able to show my kids. I was 7 at the time and remember it well. I was walked hone from school that morning by my brothers... You couldn't see anything! We lived in Port Colborne right on lake Erie very close to Buffalo but on the Canadian side. My dad was stuck at work for nearly a week. We couldn't get out of our door... Snow driftswere too high! It was unbelievable!
Thank you for sharing this historic broadcast.I was only two and I wasn't there bit I had family in upstate New York.
I remember that blizzard very well, I was hauling supplies with my snowmobile to people out of town, who were snowed in, and as I recall I did a lot of beer, and cigarette runs.
I remember in E Amherst, radio was encouraging people with snowmobiles to meet at places,Tops was one & legalizing their use anywhere for the reason you mentioned..it was the only way to get through.
willibill Buffalo is a drinking City
I lived in Oswego,NY then. My car was buried so deep that I had to dig down to get to it. It took me hours of digging to get my car clear. Anyone who has lived in a snow belt understands. This area has had its share of bad snowstorms.
Thanks for the recordings of news and weather! I was 27, living in Minneapolis in the autumn of 1976 (the cold weather started in early September, and seemed to never end.) By early 1977, I had set up interviews in Silicon Valley and SoCal, and left on January 9 (after the Vikings last Super Bowl appearance) when the temp was -15F (the low that day was -32, still the record for that day) and the high -9F. On the drive down to Dallas I was listening to the radio and the reports were exactly like.
Thanks everyone for all the great stories and comments! I really appreciate it.
Great job, it was this blizzard that gave Buffalo our snowy reputation! The pics really bring back the memories, stuck at home for days, walking over mountains to try to get to the store for milk and bread before they ran out....thanks for posting.
I was ten years old and lived in northern PA at the time. I remember there being so much snow I thought it was the best winter ever! I had a great time playing in it!
Once we were able to get outside we, as kids, made so much fun. We were walking in the roofs of the houses. The snow banks and drifts were incredibly high. We were without power for quite a while but as kids were not too concerned... Not like today... Kids would b freakin out without Internet & cell phones!! It was scary too thou, my dad couldn't get home, many ppl died. The pics on RUclips were nice to see, brings back alot of me memories & helps tell my kids the story. Thanks 4 Uploadin
I was in my early twenties and work for the New York City Department of Sanitation. I think we worked for 3 months without a day off 12 hour days. the coffee truck stops in the garage. He couldn't get home so stay for several days. We ate cheesecake for days.
Awesome video! It sure brought back a lot of memories. Thanks for posting!
Ahhhhh, I was 10 during this big storm, in Staten Island. I remember the snow didn't melt until April. Thanks for the memories!
This is wonderful! I was 10 yrs old and living in El Paso TX then. It was January and snow stayed on the ground for a week. Sadly school was not closed but I got to ride my bike to school in the snow! This was a big thing for a ten year old boy.
I was 14 and living in Illinois at the time. We got hit hard too and there was a snow drift across my drive way tall enough I could have stepped onto the roof of the garage if there wasn't a 4 foot gap between the roof and the drift. Dad parked one of his cars on the street and it got buried by snow plows. We didn't see it for nearly a month.
Whenever I see things like this it makes me thank my lucky stars my father dragged us out to California in 1964 when I was seven years old. Our extended family still lives in Niagara Falls, NY and endured it. My uncle sent me a commemorative 'Blizzard of '77' mug that I still have.
This was insane ...my mom saw it coming and came to get us at school(barker central in barker...we lived in a very small town called millers).....we were home...everyone else was stuck in school for 4 days
Wow, amazing! Here in Minnesota, we get a lot of snow, but I don't remember ever getting as much at one time as you did in this blizzard. This is a great little historical documentary you've made here with the radio and TV audio and the photos. I suggest you offer it to your local or state historical society for their archives. Thanks for posting.
Thanks for sharing, this brings back memories.
ya kudos indeed to your grandpa for taping this, super cool!
The winter of 1976-77 was brutal in southern Ontario too. I was in the seventh grade. We had four days of school cancelled due to heavy snowfalls. In all my high school years we had zero.
+Lava1964 I was living in Burlington, Ontario at the time, I was 10, this was a brutal blizzard, remember it very well.
+Lava1964 It wasn't any picnic in CT either. Took many days just to open major roads with all the buried cars/trucks. There was some great sledding for days on my street- it literally took 3 days for the plows to show.
Lava1964 and i was just born in 77 lol
I went through this in Oswego NY. I remember standing above my car digging down to get to it.
I wish we still had winters like this. 1977 winter is such a good memory for me and my friends - lots of sled riding.
I live through this storm when I was 6 years old when we lived in PA.It was an unforgettable experience!!
Great video and great use of the audio. Amazing how different things are now. Then again, in 2011, some schools in MN now have 4 day school weeks. Also, interesting to have the radio station listing very specific requests for help.
Thanks ricottafrittata, glad some people are sensitive in this world. My grandpa (Ralph Jones, from the video) dind't just tape the audio you hear, he lived through it. He definitley remembers it like it was yesterday. Even though he was in the marines and fought in many battles (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal) I'm sure he was scared to death of the storm. He is 80+ years old, and lives right by me. Glad he is still alive and well.
I was there, it was awesome and crazy to look back at. I was in 4th grade and loved having off from school, and making snow mazes and forts in the yard...Needless to say I moved to Alaska in '93, we don't receive nearly as much snow here!!
It was below zero for almost a month in some parts of Pa. Horrible winter!
Les Subrick Buffalo was 1 big joke because of Blizzard, The whole country was calling us SNOW CAPITAL OF USA
Hey Mr Ralph Jones - kudos to you for having the foresight to tape that radio report so that your grandson could post it on that "youtube thing" some 30 years later.
wow I was born Oct 77 in SC my mother was from Saratoga county and we moved back in 81 i remember her telling me stories about that winter as well many others. And growing up in NY I remember those 3-5 foot snow storms we use to get. Now we a lucky to get a couple inches for x-mas, and maybe 3 or 4 feet for the whole season. I don't think we will ever see anything like 77 again.
Remember this...
Thanks for posting.
I remember when this Blizzard hit , I lived on the west side of Buffalo , I was 7 years old, my mom got very sick that year my father had to try to get some help , and finally we were able to get her to the hospital , it was terrible. However I love Buffalo , and miss it there , even the snow I miss ( some times ) .
What made this storm unique is the snow displacement. It was a very cold and snowy winter up to that point, which meant the Great Lakes froze over early and had accumulated lots of snow from earlier storms on the surface. So not only did this blizzard pack a heavy punch of its own, but the gale force winds picked up all that snow on the lake and dropped it inland. We had 15-20 foot drifts all over, and an average of 4 feet of snow. No joke, it happened.
Reminds me of the Jan 78 blizzard in the midwest. Indiana Ill and Ohio. We got 15 inches and it blew for 3 days. Also cars and houses were buried due to the drifting. This looks a lot worse but until you have lived through a complete shutdown for days you haven't lived. Thanks for posting!
I was 8 and this was my first winter in NJ after having lived in the south up until then. I can remeber the stinging snow/ice. Everything was buried under a blanket of white. What a way to be introduced to Northern winters...lol.
I attended Buff St in '77, lived on Elmwood Ave. We were jumping out of our lst floor balcony into the snow. Everything was closed and we couldn't get to our money but the local store lent us food for money at a later time. It wasn't just that there was a lot of snow, it was damned cold and windy too! We partied big time and tried to enjoy ourselves as much as possible. It was a time I will never forget!
I remember the Pennsylvania storm. Pittsburgh was a mess! So unfortunate that so many died. I was in my home with my Mother and Father, cozied up by a coal and wood burning stove with my beloved sister (deceased) and baby brother. This brought tears to my eyes. I was just a child.
I was less than 10 years old and lived in Cleveland Ohio back then. We had record lows and no school for quite a while also. My brothers and I remember it pretty well. We helped many neighbors dig out of their homes.
I was 13 years old at the time of the storm. Us kids of the time had a blast!, no school, and snow drifts so big there was a sleading hill everywhere you looked!
I remember this!! I was in Mass. back then and we got hit hard. Brrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! We were with out power for days!!*****Duke
I remember this...particularly standing four feet above my station wagon digging down to get to it. Don't have that much fun in the snow too often, but it does come around from time to time in Oswego County, New York.
I remember it well as it was an absolute blast. Remember driving thru blinding conditions in a VW Beetle with my brother in Williamson NY (outside of Rochester) to go load up on beers at a store called Sodus Fruit Market ("SFM") in the local town of Sodus because Williamson was a dry town. It was an adventure to say the least but we managed to complete the task, often going sideways down the snow blanketed roads in our Bug. We boozed thru the entire storm with some other buddies , went out & played football in it and just lived the moment. Great memories.
I know I could never forget, that's for sure.
tanx for putting this up its so cold and really big snow storms in here europe damn you snow clouds
Now living in sunny Australia but as a 16 year old English lad living in St. Catharines, Ontario it was quite a shock to realise Mother Nature could do what she did. It was quite scary. However, fell in love with the Sabres and Bills and still follow every game via the internet down under some 42 years later. My brother served in the Canadian Army and told me of the many frozen dead people under snow drifts on the main highways he saw. Of course both the American and Canadian governments indicated minimal deaths but now as a much older lad, I know not to listen to the media lies anymore. Be thankful to be part of the Niagara / Buffalo area (Canucks & Western New Yorkers), there is no place on this planet like what you have!
Originally from Niagara Falls, luckily was in the Navy and stationed at one of Subic Bay Naval Hospital Branch Medical Clinics in the Philippines when this hit. My parents sent me clippings from the Niagara Gazette and I showed them to Philippine Nationals that I worked with and they had a hard time believing what they saw.
So glad you saved this!
love it! that audio is AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!
I remember sleding off the top of the roofs, and the thurway overpasses. I also remember that we used some many snow days, that we had to go to school almost until July.
I remember this storm. We lived on the second floor and you could step right outside from my bedroom window. I was only 6 years old and that to me was one of thee worst snow storms I have even seen in my life. It was horrible. We were buried and locked in our apartment building for a long time.
That amount of snow with -50 wind chills. Wow that's epic.
I was 11 and remember this well.Weather is one of the reasons I moved from Upstate NY to CA.
I was 13 years old in Flushing, Queens, New York. I loved staying home from school. Watched the TV new anchor on channel 4 NBC wasn't wearing his usually suit and tie. Just a pullover sweater over a white shirt AND jeans! I never seen that before on new reporter or anchor person. Maybe I didn't noticed it before. Memories
I learned one important thing from the blizzard of 1977. Here in Western New York during the winter if it is snowing like crazy it is safe to go driving on the roads and if the wind is howling it is safe to go out driving on the road. But don't EVER even think of taking your vehicle on the road if both of these occur at the same time. That is the recipe for a blizzard!
I lived in Buffalo then, worked in the Clinton-Bailey area. Co-workers left for lunch at 11:30, only went down the street to a bar and couldn't get back until almost 2pm because of zero visibility - the storm came on so suddenly. We were snowed in for 4 days at work - I finally got home, via a weird route that took hours, on Tuesday. It was an incredible experience. The building next to ours had the roof blown off. When I got my car dug out it was dead and had to be junked.
It was 77. Was there and was incredible.
awesome footage... way to go!
that's when you really needed a snowmobile suit then in those days i still have mines in case of those kind of conditions
Poopser
As a fellow Buffalo native, I am in awe of this presentation.
I drove through it from Syracuse , NY to WI, The turnpike was closed and we had to take side roads. An unforgetable experience.
I was 13 at the time living in northern KY and I remember that year very clearly.
donna Johnson People were afraid of Buffalo like people were afraid of the movie JAWS. 77 storm was bad 80mph winds, snowed everyday in January, wasn't funny the whole country called us SNOW CAPITAL OF USA. Its true even now we still get 10-12 feet every winter from Lake Erie
came across this while looking into the BONUS ARMY here on youtube
..history we just cant remember as we look towards the future !
Thanks for sharing.
They closed school 62, I was 11, and the next year BAVP. I remember WKBW, was were my sister in-law-worked at. Tommy Shannon has a show and produced "Wild Weekend" by the Rockinh Rebels which reached number 8 nationally in 1963. I think Danny "Moves Your Fanny In the Morning" Neaverth also worked there. I remember both storms 1977, and 1978 and the mild one in 1979 the year of the "The World Largest Disco" In Buffalo to LA. Good times. Thanks for Posting. GO BILLS!
i was 11 it was soooo fun.We were loving the snow days.
Gosh I remember those days...I was living in Manhattan and going to college. When it snows in NYC, all surface traffic stops. The city gets slowed down and it's QUIET!! On Broadway, people got out their skis and would ski from Morningside heights to the Village just for a cup of coffee from Reggios. I called friends and we went to Riverside park with a football, there were plenty of guys to get a pick-up game going, no matter the temp, probably 12 degrees. That was so much fun, diving for footballs in 2 feet of fluffy white snow. Then the cars were just stuck because the garbage truck/snowplows just locked them into their spots. If you needed to move, get out the shovel and some friends because it took a long while. Most cars were stuck and were just white mounds on the side of the street. I think alternate side parking was forgone for maybe almost a month, amazing. Someone else chime in because this was close to the "son of sam" phenomenon Gosh those days of living in NYC were great. I left some 20 years ago, wish I hadn't. Best people in the world..now what do we have? Oh yeah, those guys with guns in Oregon who want to make believe they are "the people" They should be charged for using oxygen without a permit`
I was a high school senior in NE Ohio, and had a part-time job at a grocery store less than a mile from home. School was closed, and the store called to ask if I could make it in. Most employees lived farther away and couldn't get there by car. I bundled up, my brother's track suit pants over my pants, and slogged a quarter mile to a main road, where a supervisor picked me up. The store's doors couldn't keep the cold air out well enough; horrible huge blasts of colder-than-cold air blew in every time someone came or went, and our hands became too cold to run the cash registers (there were only two of us) even with space heaters right next to us. We had to take breaks to thaw our fingers back out, and the meat department/deli kept us supplied with hot drinks and whatever kind of sandwiches we wanted. It was amazing how many people straggled in, lots of young fathers there for diapers, formula, & baby food. Just about everyone picked up some TP while they were there, and almost all had two or three shopping lists -- one for home, and others for neighbors and/or grandparents. It was scary outdoors, so much whirling snow and no sky, but everyone was in a great mood, very much a team, both at work and amongst the public.
At home, we had to take the storm doors off because there was so much snow we couldn't open them to get out. I think we'd had to do that before this blizzard hit. It was so cold, the furnace was on all the time, so we hung blankets over the inside of the doors and some of the windows. My older brother lived nearby, had a snowmobile, and ran errands (drugstore, grocery store) for people in need.
Wow I think the picture at 2:33 says it all. I lived in Oswego during this blizzard. I was only about 7 at the time but I remember my dad taking me to the store on his snowmobile. We had to drive about 15 miles to find a place that we could get gas and food.
We lived in Buffalo area back then. I was forced to work and stay at the medical facility where I worked for 5 days. My was wife and about 20 other people were stranded on a city bus for two days but still couldn't get home for another three days.
I remember it well. I was 9. Went to bed that night to green grass, woke up to 5 foot of snow. had to go upstairs to look out the second story window just to see the "street", which looked more like an open field. Everything was level, white and beautiful. We couldn't wait to go out and make tunnels and snow forts and the like. We even loaded all the presents up on a sled and walked to grandmas' house cause they couldn't drive to us. We all had a ball, and the power came on soon after.
this is a historic storm still. very memorable for those who lived through it.
That's for sure
Was 8 going on 9 living in Tonawanda, NY when this happened. Also remember the board game called Blizzard of '77 my parents bought for us. If I remember correctly, it was a twisted Buffalo Blizzard take on Monopoly. I remember sledding down the hills off the Youngman Highway and walking on "crunchy" snow that were actually cars. Sorry for those dents folks.....
SO was I Oliver,I was 16 and an junior at Tonawanda High School
I was 16 in Tonawanda, NY
I still remember that storm. My senior year of high school in Jamestown. Started on a Thursday afternoon. By Friday could barely get around in our International Scout. Weekend was mostly by snowmobile. Schools were closed not so much for the snow but the brutal cold and the fact that natural gas was in short supply. I believe they were shut for almost 2 weeks and we made up the time on Saturdays and a shortened Easter break. We were fortunate to not have the abandoned cars like the big cities.
I was a senior in high school when this hit. It ended up lasting for weeks and all the area schools were closed for a month, of course we loved having no school that long but some schools ended up with graduation at the end of July too.
Glad it doesn't snow here.
+Hans Bjorgman care.
Awesome storm. With wind gusts ranging from 46 to 69 mph and snow drifts piled up over 30 feet in some places, it was one for the ages. We never see storms like that here in Richmond, VA.
I lived in Alabama that year and it was the coldest Winter I can remember. It snowed about 8 times 76-77. To compare, we went 8 straight years from about '95, without a single snowflake. 76-77 made the last two severe Winters look like child's play. We got down to 3 degrees one time and the heater in my car didn't work. My nephew was born in Oct '76 and we had to constantly wrap him up in layers of clothes and he was still sick most of the time. Oldtimers tell me the 40's were even colder.
It was like this in Ridgeway and Crystal Beach along Lake Erie also. I remember.
We had that blizzard up here in Ontario Canada.. I remember we lived in a small town that was blocked off for three days..No vehicles running except for yellow ski doos. what a great time!
I was unemployed that winter, so likely inside looking out. I do remember the lines at gas stations and heating oil prices almost doubled, but the winter wasn't all that unusual in Connecticut. Our storm of a lifetime came the next winter.
this. Businesses, schools, churches closed due to cold and lack of heating oil.I was in the desert of SoCal in a few days where the temperature was 80+ degrees... I could hardly stop laughing because I was so relaxed. On the way back to Minnesota I stopped in Dallas and waited several days because Minnesota was phenomenally COLD; didn't arrice there until early February (the winter ended in mid-February) but I was soon en route to SoCal for the next 13 warm winters!
That was the worst winter I can remember. We had a blast digging tunnels through the yard.
I was 12....made. $200 and put on 10lbs of muscle after this storm
How much you charge then?
then u blew the money and got fat?
I made $1,000 last year in the Boise blizzard.. I built muscle up too and it took only three weeks ha.. Jacked up my clavicles..
I am from Dunkirk NY and no stranger to terrible winter storms. I was living in Ohio...east of Cleveland. My house was buried in snow like those in these pics. We had to dig out of five or more feet of snow to get out of the house and the snow was up to the roof line. We moved to Florida in June. I have not,and never will, complain about the heat! Bring it on!
I was 11, and made 56 dollars, Mom had me open a bank account, 1978 was a bad winter also, I Rember a snow drift was has tall as a second story house, winters were winters back then.
Wow...this was hard core. I have heard stories where the winds were hurricane force. However, I really cannot imagine living through this kind of Blizzard (and the ones in 1993 and 1996 was tame compared)
I grew up on a small Family farm in Ohio during the Blizzard of "78", and I remember on the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite reporting that Dayton, Ohio was the experiecing the worst energy crisis in the enitire country. I am almost 50 now and have never seen anything like it since. Each day, we woke up only to find more farm animals dead, due to the -50 below zero weather. We were off School for three weeks straight. I will never forget how we all pulled together to survive.
Remember it well! I was the perfect age of 12 and lived very close to Lake Ontario in New York. Sledding on 7 foot snow banks was a blast. We didn't have power and had to open the gas oven for heat. I remember listening to the battery operated radio to learn where the National Guard was flying bread and milk in by helicopter...then walking with a sled to get it at the IGA. No school for a week! It was great!
Tug Hill Plateau?
It's funny to hear the talk of a 4 10 hour day work week from back then. I worked a what was called a compressed work week for years, nothing better than a 3 day weekend every week, and all I did was work 4 10 hour days. I loved it. Course now I'm retired now so every day is a day off.
I was 10 years old when this happened, living in buffalo, our house was in north buffalo near the zoo. Anyone that lived through this can verify how insane it was. Once it started it wouldnt stop and seemed to get more viscous by the hour. Definately a once in a lifetime storm !!
Shows how much you know! My father was there and saw it. One of the dealers he called on in buffalo had the windows blown out of their showroom. And had to bring the stock out of the warehouse to put in front of the window space to keep the snow out. And they business was taking people off the street to shelter them!
Roots was on TV and the stranded people downtown gathered around any TV to watch. they felt they had some sort of relief from the storm. Glad we survied and look back and say BRRRRR
I was 23 at the time and living near Bailey and Walden. The worst thing about the blizzard was that the wind kept swirling around and shifting the snow drifts until they hardened. We had to cut the drifts apart. After the first week of shutdown, the city opened up for two days and there were so many cars stuck and blocking traffic, that the mayor shut down the city for another 3 weeks. No travel except for emergency and city workers.
I was living in Cleve, Oh. at the time and believe me, it was no picnic there either. Lake Erie doesn't even slow down the Canadian wind. I lived up there for nine years. Moved south in '81 and have been back only 1 time since. Don't miss it a'tall.