So we had to recalibrate it and put another chart on to get the rest of the trace.". A monster storm with hurricane-force winds slammed into Northeast Ohio early Jan. 26, 1978, spreading an icy coat of death and destruction. That created frozen, half-buried metal barriers to delivering the PD safely in a milk chute or screen door. It was a complete whiteout. Four-wheel-drive trucks picked up nurses to get them to the hospital. "Nobody could get in and nobody could get out," he said. "Nothing changed. If you lived or worked through it, please tell us about it for Julie's story, or contact her below. Subscribe to cleveland.com. But we had to change the chart because it was going off our chart. National Guardsmen rescued thousands of stranded people. Howling winds tore off roofs, knocked down trees and blew out windows. When the storm hit, the school closed and the hospital that was connected to my dorm went into survival mode. The city received only 4 inches of snow, but it fell atop 17 inches already on the ground. 6,000 Ohioans were trapped in their cars. Along with the Derecho of May 31, 1998, it was the most disruptive storm of my career. "Nobody slept much that night. I was engaged to be married in June of that year. A satellite photo revealed a giant swirl of clouds over Ohio. The result was a very strong area of low pressure that reached its lowest pressure over Cleveland,'' according to the NWS website. The winds slowly began to diminish overnight. My paper bags were empty. "Our trace on our barograph went down like a funnel," Alto said. m_gallery_creation_date = "Friday, January 19, 2018, 1:34 PM"; Windy and cold Thursday with snow flurries.". "The ice was on the window of his car and he was trying to reach his arm out and scrape the ice off," she said. And all that night, the radio station served a real community purpose throughout the entire Midwest as a communications hub, relaying information coming into their studio by phone from stranded truckers and motorists at gas stations, motels and truck stops across Ohio. m_gallery_type = "photo"; Gallery: Blizzard of 1978 remembered 40 years later. The drift went over the garage roof, totally covering my father's car parked out front. Mary Jo Anderson, 61, of Springfield Township, remembers the high-pitched wail. m_gallery_pagetype = "embed"; Parts of Northeast Ohio saw nearly a foot of snow, on top of 16 inches that had fallen earlier in the week. Kohari, who grew up in upstate New York, was no stranger to snowstorms. Before it was over, 51 Ohioans had lost their lives to the storm, which was the worst in state history. Warm moist air slammed into bone-chilling cold. "Growing up in a family of weather fanatics, I was conditioned to watch the forecast every night on the evening news. m_gallery_permalink = "https://www.cleveland.com/expo/ERRY-2018/01/4760eca309/index.html"; Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. - John 'Cowboy' Knueve, Putnam County, Ohio. "There was a huge space heater in the kitchen that we used to heat the whole house. The center of the storm was west of the airport. Zhivago.'" "He had to shovel out to get to work. I drove my family's 1977 Ford LTD with the immediate family to Calvary Cemetery and made sure I took a bag of rock salt and a snow shovel in the trunk. All rights reserved. We piled the snow into a mound, then dug out the inside. The Great Blizzard of 1978 struck Ohio and the Dayton region with force in January, setting a record snowfall of more than a foot and resulting in death and travel hazards. They made sure we had lunch, then piled us all back on the school buses for a hair-raising ride home through the raging snowstorm. When we finished with the shoveling, my father got the idea to build an igloo for me. We haven’t seen another quite like it, although we had some pretty impressive ice storms when I was in high school. Bob Alto was able to leave the airport by 4 p.m. Saturday. - Karen Stetz, 58, Canal Winchester, "I was living in Canton and working at the Stark County District Library. - Christopher Sedlock, vice president at the Center for Excellence in Education, Charles Town West Virginia, "I will never forget that the local stores in Cleveland were selling T-shirts that read, 'I survived the '78 Blizzard!' I was just grateful to have their tire-width path to walk in as I trudged through the deep white snow. We had steady 111 mph winds gusting up to 127 mph for about six hours. I couldn't say anything," Webster said. 4 decades later, people are still talking about it. "He opened the car door and it almost ripped the car door off.". The Blizzard of 1978 began in Indiana on Wednesday, Jan. 25, and struck Greater Cleveland on  Jan. 26, according to the National Weather Service. I said, 'Well, we're trying to stay warm.' Editor's note: Originally published in 2008 for the 30th anniversary of the storm. Typical messages were: 'John Smith wants his family to know in New Brunswick that he is safe at the Holiday Inn in Warren,' or 'Bob Jones wants Sarah Jones to know that he's stuck on the side of the road near Exit 6 on the turnpike, but he's OK.'" - Bruce Hennes, 63, Cleveland Heights. According to the National Weather Service, National Weather Service offices across the Great Lakes and Upper Ohio Valley issued blizzard warnings for most of the region by late evening on Jan. 25, 1978. A record low barometric pressure reading of 28.28 inches in Cleveland remains the lowest pressure recorded in Ohio and one of the lowest pressure readings in U.S. history not associated with a hurricane, the NWS said. He made it about a mile up the road in his Ford Pinto, but he couldn't drive any farther because the wind was too ferocious. Bitter was the cold, but sweet was the silence. Whatever, give it a try, you'll love it. "I was at Canton South High School the first day of the blizzard, because ours was the only school district around that decided not to cancel school. Road crews had been out all day and night. When the storm was over, shoveling began (no snow blower). The Blizzard of 1978, often called the Storm of the Century, killed more than 50 people in Ohio and caused at least $100 million in damage. "(Former WJW Channel 8 meteorologist) Dick Goddard had warned us of the impending doom. Wind chills made the air feel like 60-below zero, and the Ohio National Guard rescued stranded motorists and truckers, some of whom had been stuck for days. The storm wasn’t just huge, it was dangerous. m_gallery_json = "https://expo.advance.net/static/4760eca309/data.json"; Central Ohio was caught in the statewide blizzard of 1978 beginning on Jan. 26. If a similar blizzard were to hit the Midwest now, television stations would be able to give viewers more information to better prepare them for what was coming, Webster said. Jack Edwards, 86, of Stow, remembers making it to his Goodrich job, only to discover that the building didn't have heat. Everything was closed." There were three of us there: myself, Phil Martin and Ed Heath. I remember the struggle to just get home the most." The blizzard … I was sent aloft with a cane fishing pole to plumb for the car's position so Dad wouldn't inadvertently do damage while digging it out. On January 25, 1978, the temperature was 41 degrees. It took Ohio residents several days to dig out. The Blizzard of 1978 made me a household name in West Michigan. All that meant little when I tried to push open the side door of our Parma bungalow to deliver newspapers and ran into a 4-foot snowdrift. Blizzard warnings turned to travelers' advisories before dawn Friday. Wind howling. "We'd finally landed Bette Midler for four shows at The Front Row Theater in Highland Heights. "My husband (George) was working days at Goodrich," she said. The Blizzard of 1978, often called the Storm of the Century, killed more than 50 people in Ohio and caused at least $100 million in damage. the monthly snowfall for january 1978 was 31.5 inches...which is the highest amount of snow for any month. Traveling anywhere was much like driving through a deep canyon, as road crews had piled snow so high on each side of the roads (10- to 14-feet deep in places) you simply had to know where you were going since many visual landmarks were totally obliterated by deep snows." "It was quite an event.". The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Then he came home and he shoveled out so my daughter (Marta) could get in from the university. CLEVELAND, Ohio - For two days in January 1978, Northeast Ohio felt like a suburb of Siberia. the maximum snow depth at cincinnati up to that time was just before the blizzard with 14 inches on january 20th and 21st of 1978. "When I got out at the bus stop, I still had to walk home either up a long private drive, or across our neighbor's 3 1/2-acre yard in order to get to our house. Here, some current and former Northeast Ohio residents share memories of the blizzard (Share your memories on The Plain Dealer's Facebook Page, or on he post at the bottom of this story): "I was a deckhand on the M.V. As they drove around downtown Cleveland, they found roads that were almost closed. - Susan Beech, 47, Cleveland, "I remember my brother-in-law picking me up to go to work Downtown. the greatest snow fall for a season was also broken with the 1977-1978 seasonal total of 53.9 inches. "He was happy to make it back," Mary Jo Anderson said. ❤️, “Nature gives to every time and season some beau, "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, Scioto Grove is our newest Metro Park and is locat, Thinking of making this a @cbusmetroparks fan acco, Start typing to see results or hit ESC to close, Southeast Ohio Town Grapples With Unusual Conflict Over Masks, COVID-19, Need A Ride To Vote? Every morning we compile the best of Columbus news & events and deliver it in a quick 5 minute read that sets you up with everything you need to be a well informed Columbusian. The original forecast sounded harmless enough: "Rain tonight, possibly mixed with snow at times. Mar 7, 2016 - Explore Bryan Kilbarger's board "Ohio Blizzard of '78", followed by 477 people on Pinterest. A Cleveland truck driver was trapped for six days in a giant drift near Mansfield. In Ohio alone, 51 people died as a result of the blizzard.

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