[LMB] OT: Blizzards

[M Traber]

Sherry German wrote:
> The blizzard of '71 in the Oklahoma panhandle is the one I remember.
> There were drifts in places 80 feet high.  I drove home just as it
> started.  I recall walking over the fence on top of the snow two
> weeks later.  Our neighbors lost over 300 head of cows.  Our horse
> chased our herd to the hilltop so we only lost four.  We were totally
> snowed in until the roads were cleared two weeks later.  The National
> Guard helicopter got my aunt to the hospital and dropped hay for the
> cows.  I have driven in blizzards twice since but this one was very
> much the worst one I have ever seen. Sherry, glad that at least there
> is no snow in Houston

I spent much of my formative years [from 1961 through 1973] alternating 
between Bavaria and the southern tier of western NY state ... the great 
lakes weather belt. Not *by* the lakes, but on the lake side of the 
foothills to the appalachian mountains. The blizzards sort of brush past 
the lake area and dump the snow on the hills. Almost every winter I can 
remember there, we sledded out of the 3d story window and hollowed out 
the drifts into castles. In general [back in the 60s] the snow would hit 
in the beginning of november, and leave sometime in april. I can 
remember many fascinating weeks where nobody was able to actually leave 
the village proper because the state hadn't ploughed the main roads 
between the towns yet. Only the local trucks [and locals with trucks and 
plows added] had managed to clear the main streets in town.

I have a very vivid memory of not being able to get out to a hospital 
and being packed in snow in the bath tub to bring my fever down because 
not only couldnt we leave town, but the town pharmacist was snowed in at 
his farm and nobody could open the pharmacy to get me meds and the local 
doctor had gotten snowed in at the Warsaw hospital. I can really 
understand Mile's hatred of being cold after camp permafrost.

I have and still will drive in conditions that make people panic. I 
drove from Rochester NY to Springfield OH in the blizzard in 82. I 
didn't have any trouble at all.Pop the chains on the tires and go slow. 
I was pretty much plowing snow with a ford mustang on that trip. I drove 
from the erie area to akron before I actually saw a plow on the road. 
Just about when I was rounding the corner in Columbus, a cop stopped me 
and when I told him I had been driving all night, and hadn't had any 
problems yet, he shook his head and let me go.

I LOVE the snow. It is slush, rain and people who don't know how to 
drive in teh snow and refuse to stay off the roads I hate!