Bullpen Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Senior in HS. Played hours and hours of Risk with friends. I'm sure you cheated too. I was in first grade at Gardenville in West Seneca. We actually went to school that day. The snow came so fast- we got snowed in. They opened up the cafeteria for dinner. And I slept on my classroom floor with my nap rug. I was awoken in the middle of the night by a teacher- and some stranger loaded their car up with me and a few kids and drove us home in the blizzard. I got dropped off at the end of my road, and had a couple block walk home. I remember it dumping snow, and being blown side to side from the winds. I stayed outside as long as I could trying to savor the storm. But I was tired and headed home after awhile. I will always remember that late night walk in those conditions! Man Pete, if that happened today (tossing the kids in a stranger's vehicle and then dumping 'em off at night at the end of the street) there would be a public outcry to pounds of flesh! Down in our neck of the woods, we didn't get nearly the snow you all got. In fact, I don't remember if we missed any school or not. I do remember Channel 7 did a report on how families were coping with all the snow and they featured my aunt, uncle and cousins. That was pretty cool.
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 (edited) Man Pete, if that happened today (tossing the kids in a stranger's vehicle and then dumping 'em off at night at the end of the street) there would be a public outcry to pounds of flesh! I was thinking the same exact thing! But, there had to be incidents through the years that went terribly wrong! He was lucky, I would have still walked him him to the door. That is taking a big risk, even back in old 1977. We lived near Northwood in West Seneca (actually lived in S. Cheektowaga)... I remember a storm in grade 4 when the buses were all stuck... My parents hiked into school with winter gear (my snowsuit) and stuff... Hiked right back home with them... Still remember the buses in the ditches and snow up to my neck! No way during that storm in 1978 was the school going to release children to just anybody! Anyway, I was reading the account of the blizzard in 1888 (I think it was 1888) out in Nebraska... A teacher was trying to get her students safely out and tied them all with a rope before heading out into the storm... They all perished. Edited January 30, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois
theesir Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Entire Channel 4 Newscast from 1/31/77 Complete with fantastic commercials
BuffaloBud Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 I was thinking the same exact thing! But, there had to be incidents through the years that went terribly wrong! He was lucky, I would have still walked him him to the door. That is taking a big risk, even back in old 1977. We lived near Northwood in West Seneca (actually lived in S. Cheektowaga)... I remember a storm in grade 4 when the buses were all stuck... My parents hiked into school with winter gear (my snowsuit) and stuff... Hiked right back home with them... Still remember the buses in the ditches and snow up to my neck! No way during that storm in 1978 was the school going to release children to just anybody! Anyway, I was reading the account of the blizzard in 1888 (I think it was 1888) out in Nebraska... A teacher was trying to get her students safely out and tied them all with a rope before heading out into the storm... They all perished. I lived within walking distance to Lancaster High School. When the school let us out I gathered up all the kids in the hood and we walked holding hands to stay together and not leave anyone behind. We looked like a team of circus elephants in the snow.
stevewin Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 I was in 8th grade. I remember walking around on the top of two story houses, and some drifts you could touch the top of telephone poles. I lived in Lancaster off aurora - remember in the following days walking down aurora toward William (which then was just open and completely had drifted over) and some how they had carved out a path down the street - the walls on either side must have been 15-20 feet at spots, it was truly incredible.
Chandler#81 Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Swimming in the Indian Ocean -on a Med Cruise, Marines 1-6, when a buddy joined joined us and told me about the blizzard.
boyst Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Come on, someone find me at least 1 picture of one of these car eating rotary things? The only things I can find are on loaders and trains, and just giant fans.
Lurker Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Drunkenly tried to drive home to Niagara Falls from RIT and got stuck in a farmhouse in Genesee County after the road became impassable (along with about 10 other stranded drivers). Spent the weekend watching Roots (cheering OJ's acting chops) and helping to feed the farmer's goats. Heard afterword that two people a half mile further up the road froze to death in their car when it got stuck in the snow and there were no houses within walking distance. The farmer that took us in that night was a real life saver...
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) Come on, someone find me at least 1 picture of one of these car eating rotary things? The only things I can find are on loaders and trains, and just giant fans. Like this: http://photos.northofboston.com/Newspapers/The-Eagle-Tribune-Archive/December-2008-ET/i-QZ9CHRM/0/L/081220_ET_TJE_OSHKOSH_5-L.jpg Here is something different: Screw-propelled vehicles... Check out the old one from 1962... Was used to deliver mail in Truckee, Cali: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw-propelled_vehicle Edited January 31, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois
boyst Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) Like this: http://photos.northo...OSHKOSH_5-L.jpg Here is something different: Screw-propelled vehicles... Check out the old one from 1962... Was used to deliver mail in Truckee, Cali: http://en.m.wikipedi...opelled_vehicle I found that, but how could these things really eat a car? Edited January 31, 2013 by jboyst62
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I found that, but how could these things really eat a car? I is not gonna "eat a car" and just keep on going... Probably do extensive damage to the auger... And then the machine is down and out for a while... Car mine as well be totalled? The thing is when a car is buried in a snow drift and the operator doesn't see it. Go put and stick a Tonka truck in a snow bank and hit it with an 8hp Tor... See what happens. Hey little buddy (jboyst)... I gotta nice book for you... This is what dug us out! :-P :-P Viginia Lee Burton's Katy & The Big Snow: http://books.google.com/books/about/Katy_and_the_Big_Snow.html?id=CxcmG62yftwC Just funning you jboyst! :-) :-)
Gordio Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I was only 3 at the time so I don't really remember it. Pretty interesting set of circumstances though. The lake froze on December 9th that year(a record for the earliest date). As any Buffalonian knows once the lake freezes the snow machine usually gets turned off. Well that year after the lake froze over the course of the next 4-5 weeks a little more then 3 feet of snow got dumped on WNY. Not all at once but more like a few inches every day or so. Much of that snow was sitting right on the lake. When the wind kicked up reaching gusts of up to 70 mph, that picked up the snow off the lake & there you had the blizzard of 77. Some of the drifts were reported to be 30 feet high which must of been incredible. Interesting story, Christmas Eve 2001, I was 27 at the time. I worked at the center on the 18th floor. Since it was Christmas Eve there was only a few guys in the office. One of the Senior VP's one of the old timers called me into his office. He had a clear view of lake erie from his office. He said "look at these clouds, I only have seen clouds like this one time in my life & that was before the Blizzard of 77. Something big is going down, I am getting out of here, I suggest you do the same." I left a few minutes after that. Shortly after, over the next several days that is when we got the 8 feet of snow dumped on us. Not sure how he knew, but when one of the old timers tells you to start running for the hills, you better take their warning serious.lol
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) I was only 3 at the time so I don't really remember it. Pretty interesting set of circumstances though. The lake froze on December 9th that year(a record for the earliest date). As any Buffalonian knows once the lake freezes the snow machine usually gets turned off. Well that year after the lake froze over the course of the next 4-5 weeks a little more then 3 feet of snow got dumped on WNY. Not all at once but more like a few inches every day or so. Much of that snow was sitting right on the lake. When the wind kicked up reaching gusts of up to 70 mph, that picked up the snow off the lake & there you had the blizzard of 77. Some of the drifts were reported to be 30 feet high which must of been incredible. Interesting story, Christmas Eve 2001, I was 27 at the time. I worked at the center on the 18th floor. Since it was Christmas Eve there was only a few guys in the office. One of the Senior VP's one of the old timers called me into his office. He had a clear view of lake erie from his office. He said "look at these clouds, I only have seen clouds like this one time in my life & that was before the Blizzard of 77. Something big is going down, I am getting out of here, I suggest you do the same." I left a few minutes after that. Shortly after, over the next several days that is when we got the 8 feet of snow dumped on us. Not sure how he knew, but when one of the old timers tells you to start running for the hills, you better take their warning serious.lol That 2001 storm was with a big low stalled right over The Soo... What he was seeing was most likely the squall line. With the low situated like that (low in the northern hemi turns anti-clockwise) in that area, it was the perfect storm for the lake machine to kick in... Using the whole fetch of Lake Erie to dump snow on the BFLO area. With '77, the lake machine was shut off early... That means regular systems were depositing that snow early... Then the arctic system and wind Anyway... I would have loved to see the intersting seiche it (2001) may have created. The last one I seen was a bunch of Christmas' ago... Here on Lake Michigan. The low actually dropped the lake elevation on the South Side or Chicago and the river by almost 6 feet! All that water had to be piled up on the Michigan side of the lake! This is one of the reasons why we have the outer and inner harbor breakwaters in BFLO... Those breakwaters protect BFLO from devastating seiches (think inland tsumani). The worst seiche before the breakwaters were built devastated BFLO in the mid-1800s. The water literally swept people out of their beds in the port/canal district. Where the Aud was, there was 10 feet of lake water. Edited January 31, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois
nucci Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Still in high school watching from the front window.
BuffaloBill Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 Our road had one lane through a drift for weeks. I grew up surrounded by dairy farms. They all had to dump milk as trucks could not get in to take it for processing. Looking back it was probably a tough financial blow to many.
CookieG Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 Remember being able to touch the bottom edge of the green part of a signal light at the intersection of Harris Hill and Pleasant View on the way home. That intersection made the national news, with someone doing just that. It isn't every day that something from Lancaster makes the national news, so it was kind of cool at the time. My mother in law lives on Harris Hill, and when we were home a few years ago, I bored my sons with that story as we drove through the intersection. And bored them further bringing up the paper route I had during the blizzard. The News stopped printing for a day or two, if I remember. Ah, struggling through 15 foot drifts to make sure the old ladies on my route got their Twin Fair slingers. You must be from Lancaster. Go Skins!
Marv's Neighbor Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 If you were snowed in, I imagine you did not have power? Were furnaces oil then? If electric were you SOL? But, more importantly, being snowed in... what happens when you could not even open the door? That had to have happened? You go upstairs and go out the window! Sucks if you live in a basement apartment.
BuffaloBud Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 That intersection made the national news, with someone doing just that. It isn't every day that something from Lancaster makes the national news, so it was kind of cool at the time. My mother in law lives on Harris Hill, and when we were home a few years ago, I bored my sons with that story as we drove through the intersection. And bored them further bringing up the paper route I had during the blizzard. The News stopped printing for a day or two, if I remember. Ah, struggling through 15 foot drifts to make sure the old ladies on my route got their Twin Fair slingers. You must be from Lancaster. Go Skins! Yep - Remember that the snow piled up at the sides of the roads were too high to see over when going through an intersection. One of us would jump out of the car, play look out, and then jump back in. we found a WonderBread truck on the thruway and got the manager of Tops on Transit to open up for us so that we can get eggs, milk, juice, peanut butter, jelly, and bologna for the folks stuck at our fire station. Snow machines looked like a military convoy hauling all that stuff back.
Bullpen Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 Ah, struggling through 15 foot drifts to make sure the old ladies on my route got their Twin Fair slingers. Wow Twin Fair!!! I haven't thought of that store in at least 30 years! That's what I love about this board, the fans are such a regional group that a lot of us "get" the references to obscure things like Twin Fair, Ted's, Clip Smith, Anchor Bar vs. Duffs and all the different towns and neighborhoods.
boyst Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 Our road had one lane through a drift for weeks. I grew up surrounded by dairy farms. They all had to dump milk as trucks could not get in to take it for processing. Looking back it was probably a tough financial blow to many. I do know about this aspect. A lot of the 60's and 70's gave rise to government programs which spawned the insurance and compensation programs of today. I am fairly certain that these programs were not popular at this time, although I have read some articles that have seemed to indicate farmers in the area were insured. Too bad frozen yogurt wasn't invented then, they could have sold that! (kidding)
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