We hosted 10 of the secretaries from my dad’s company - my brother and I ended up crashing on the 2 twin beds that were stored in the basement, and we dragged out the 4 army style cots so we managed to squeeze everybody in. The power went out, so we were heating the house with the wood stove, and mom kept a vat of beef stew on and a large pot of water for making tea and coffee, the water heater was one of the older gas fired tanks that didn’t need power, the town water was still working so we had full bathroom use. We also used the wood stove to cook smaller pots of whatever the neighbors brought over to get cooked. I seem to remember about 3 days of being snowed in [better than the one in the early 80s, I was living in Hilton right on the shore, and got snowed in for 10 days over the Christmas season, I had a pic of Lake Ontario frozen out for about half a mile.]
While I don’t mind blizzards, we tend to be prepared I can see how being in a dark cooling house with no electricity listening to heavy winds hitting the side and roof, possibly wind blown debris or tree limbs whacking the house could be pretty scary.
About five months after I moved to the DC area (after spending my entire life in LA before that), “Snowzilla” hit. I’d visited ski resorts before, but had rarely been anywhere while it was actually snowing before that (probably three or four times total in my life). As the potential power of the storm was being hyped over the days before it arrived, I got really excited about the prospect. I didn’t have any real sense that there was danger from a blizzard if one were indoors, and I just wanted it to snow, dammit!
My wife mocked me during the early part of the storm, when I complained that it didn’t seem to be snowing all that much. Ultimately, we got about 28 inches of snow at our house from it. It was a pain in the ass because we live at the end of a long cul-de-sac, and we weren’t plowed out for four days. And I hurt my back during the shoveling process. But it was never scary for me.
I’ve seen enough snow since then to know that I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be caught out driving during a blizzard, but beyond that, I don’t find the idea scary.
You would if you were deprived of all the special clothing, infrastructure, and other technology that makes extreme danger seem like a minor inconvenience. Plop you down in a t-shirt and shorts out of reach of civilization in a blizzard, you would think it was pretty scary in the hours before you died from it.
At least with blizzards you can apply those things to the problem with a reasonable expectation of success. When the ground has decided it’s going to flow and drop some buildings in your vicinity, or the air decides to spend a few hours at 180km/h to keep you busy until the storm surge arrives, it’s got a combination of chaos and inevitability about it that scares me a lot more than my home’s gentle yet persistent attempts to kill us all in exactly the same way every year.
By this logic, even normal weather would be scary. Few of us have the skills to survive in a t-shirt and shorts out of reach of civilization, regardless of weather conditions.
As a life long resident of New Hampshire, blizzards are a part of life. I don’t find them scary at all; just a real big pain to deal with. I agree with the others that have said ice storms are a lot worse to deal with. With the blizzards, power is out for two or three days at most. With ice storms, you can be without power for up to a week(or even more if you live in way out in the woods.) The ice storms can knock down powerlines for miles upon miles and they basically have to been strung back up pole by pole. That’s not even mentioning driving on ice-covered roads is more dangerous than driving on snow-covered roads.
(PS Unless you’re referring to Dairy Queen’s Blizzards; they are delicious.)
If it was truly a multi-state event think it must have been a different storm. 1977 was pretty localized to western New York, which gets a lot of lake effect snow. These storms can be intensely local; there are videos where you can see a sharp diving line between raging storm and calm sunny skies.
I don’t remember power being out for as long as a month anywhere, but I was a kid and we never lost power so don’t trust me. Wiki is silent on this, although I did discover that 1977 was NOT due to the lake effect.
Hey neighbor! I grew up in Webster, NY, bought my first house in Hamlin (about 1/2 mile from the lake) and have lived in Bristol since 1982.
We had a beauty in ‘66 and I was snowed in at my friend’s house in Scottsville. When the town machinery finally got a path through the roads, there were like 4-6’ walls of snow on each side of the road.
Made it through several lake-effect storms in Hamlin for the 7 years I lived there. We had stranded people a couple of different times stay with us overnight.
Since I’ve been in Bristol, I only had one real blizzard – in 1993. Not really a big deal though. I have wood/coal heat and a propane cook stove. We never lost power so I had well water. Just this spring I had a whole-house Cummins generator installed that automatically starts when the power flickers, so I will always have water, lights, sump pump, TV, etc. no matter what happens.
But, to the point, no they are not scary at all. They are actually kinda fun. I live on a dirt road in the woods (with neighbors) and we all look out for each other. With snowmobiles all over anybody that needs anything can pretty much get it.
The only real danger of dying would to be out on the roads when it’s snowing like crazy and going down an embankment with nobody knowing about it. You could be there for days, maybe injured and unable to get out of the car – if you didn’t die of exposure first. But I cannot recall of this ever happening to anybody.
I live in an area where it snows a little, but not that much. And we have rain & windstorms, but they’re not that bad.
A blizzard doesn’t seem scary - it seems like a giant pain in the ass. When it snows here, it means that I’m cooped up for a couple of days (I know I can’t drive in snow & even if I could all of the idiots who don’t realize the difference between powdery, dry snow somewhere flat where they salt & plow is different than wet, icy snow on hills that is going to be there until it melts (after freezing over several times) are sliding around the streets). The panic is more just making sure that everything is in place to stay shut in for a few days. A blizzard seems like you’d need to stay in place longer - not scary, just really, really inconvenient and annoying. If I can get home, I’m ok. And even if I can’t get home, if I can get inside, I’m still safe, just more inconvenienced.
Hurricanes seem terrifying. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere safe during (your house can just be blown away. Other things can blow into your house, destroy it, your things, and you). The aftermath is devastating and can still destroy you, your stuff, and your house. There are stories of people needing to rebuild year after year after year - even in places with building codes. They’re much, much scarier.
Really anymore you have good weather prediction so you know they are coming. You have well insulated homes that are easier to heat. Most people that live in affected areas have backup heat and electricity sources. People stock up on food and even then, even in the worse blizzard, roads are usually open within 4-5 days at MOST. Now we have satellite and internet so your never cut off from the outside.
I guess the people who work from home dont get a day off and people who’s jobs depend upon lots of customers like say own a restaurant, they get hit hard.
In some areas people with critical jobs like at hospitals can call and someone with a 4 wheel drive will come get them.
That’s hardly true for hurricanes; my grandparents rode out several hurricanes living in the Galveston area- Alicia in 1983 was one that both sets of my grandparents rode out with little trouble- downed trees and they were without power for a while, but that was it. My grandmother rode out Ike about 10 years ago in the same house- she was 84 at the time. Same effects- no power for a while, some downed tree limbs, but that’s it.
My parents have rode out everything that’s hit Houston since about 1973- with no problems whatsoever.
Based on reading this thread, blizzards and hurricanes have a lot more in common than you’d think- unless you’re in the direct path of a very severe one, it’s more likely that you’ll just have to hunker down for a while until power gets back on and the roads are cleared.
Living in North Texas, I’ll say that tornadoes are kind of nerve-wracking; every line of thunderstorms can spawn them, and there can be little warning, especially at night. And even when you are awake and paying attention, it’s not like you can really flee- you just wait it out and hope none hit you.
Really, the issue about why we don’t push the panic button for blizzards is that they are a natural disaster that we know how to deal with and have largely moderated the danger of.
We know their coming.
We know we have infrastructure to deal with them.
They’re predictable.
Put those things together and we don’t see evacuation as we did here in South Carolina for the recent hurricane.
Also, blizzards don’t kill through violence. That tends to upset people.
Ditto here. I actually look forward to a good blizzard. But I’m also safe and sound at home with many neighbors; it’s never been frightening in the least to me. I love a good blizzard or snowstorm, and even popping out during one to the Walgreens a couple blocks away for a bottle of red wine to keep me cozy.
They can be scary for people on the shoreline. Here in the Boston metro area places like Hull, Winthrop, Nahant, get pounded by the blizzard AND storm surge bringing the ocean to their doorstep (and beyond).
I’m a good 6 miles from the shore and blizzards are mostly an enormous inconvenience. Though a nor’easter (not even an actual blizzard) tore the side door off my garage back in March.
Every once in a while, a blizzard can cause violence by collapsing a roof. The Knickerbocker Blizzard in 1922 caused a poorly-designed theater’s roof to collapse, killing 98 people. Further, rescue efforts were hampered by the deep snow.
The Minnesota Metrodome got luckier, in that its roof collapse happened when it was empty.
A blizzard is certainly not scary to a person in a modern, well insulated house in a city. They’re damn scary if you’re driving but that should be avoided.
In the past, you might have a lot of reason to be frightened of them. They could kill lots of people in the country and farms and such, especially in the U.S. and Canadian prairies, where blizzards could cut people off from food and supplies, or trap them in the open with no way of orienting themselves to shelter.
The one you’re thinking of most likely happened in 1978 (which is the one I mentioned in the OP). It hit New England and half of the mid-Atlantic states. 100 people died.