When We Were Paralyzed: Videos From The Infamous New England Blizzard Of ’78


When We Were Paralyzed: Videos From The Infamous New England Blizzard Of ’78

Because today may be the hottest Christmas on record for most of New England, we thought it appropriate to show some crazy footage of the white stuff not looking so pretty or nice. Check this out!

Nearly thirty seven years ago, the New England area was struck by one of the most powerful and destructive winter storms of modern times. Dumping more than two feet of snow into metro areas and more than three feet in other parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the Blizzard of ’78 will go down as one of the “big ones” in our weather history. People who lived through it love to tell their stories and frankly, we love listening to them. Bulldozers and massive loaders clearing the roads, the US Army clearing the highways, people not finding their cars for weeks, and even better stories of neighbors with nothing to do for days on end hamming it up and having fun. I missed it by two years being born in 1980 but through the miracle of YouTube and archived video, I can relive it with the best of them through the footage below.

What’s happening right now in my local area as you are reading this may top even the mighty 1978 storm. If the weather guessers are right, we’re looking at about the same totals. If they miss it by a little it maybe significantly more. There’s really no shot at missing this one which is different than what usually happens ’round here. With today’s hyper advanced warning system known as “panic television” we don’t often see the types of situations that were present in the late 1970s. When everyone is told to stay home, everything changes.

Back then, the highways ground to a halt and didn’t move. Guardsmen and Army soldiers rescued people from their cars as the snow piled up around exhaust pipes and people began to feel the ill effects of carbon monoxide from their carbed engines which had been idling endlessly. There were several deaths from people who asphyxiated in their cars and others who were killed at sea or in other disasters. The second video shows the flooding and rescue efforts that had to be made along the coast as the storm came in with an incredible surge that did million upon millions in damage and quickly swamped coastal roads.

fordn This fine looking piece of equipment is my dad’s 1952 Ford 8N tractor, doing what it has primarily done since he bought it, which is moving snow. He spent days atop this thing after the blizzard plowing driveways and parking lots. The little tractor still runs like a top and it is easily my favorite vehicle on planet Earth. The tough little customer with its chains and loader bucket was the saviour of many family members after the storm and my dad was one of hundreds of guys who were out doing the same thing.

One of the things it is tough to conceive of about the blizzard of ’78 is that most pickup trucks weren’t four wheel drives and even fewer actually had plows. Seems crazy in these times when it looks like every other truck sold in a cold weather climate has a blade on the front and a locker in the back but it was not the case in the late 1970s. As you will see, snow was primarily moved by tractors and large trucks along with the feeble snow shovels of people who had cars completely bured up to their gunwales by drifts of snowbanks

The videos below show what the world looked like here on this date 36 years ago. As I type this, the massive storm that’s being called one of the worst in decades is bearing down on us. We’re better equipped and prepared for it now, but there’s still something neat about seeing a front end loader come down the road with a curl of white powder funneling off the end of the plow like an ocean wave. Stay tuned…I plan on keeping you all up on the scene around here LIVE!

ENJOY THIS TRIP BACK TO THE TIME WHEN WE WERE PARALYZED LIKE THE FOLKS IN ATLANTA – ENJOY THE CARS, TRUCKS, AND TRACTORS THAT WERE ON THE ROAD IN ’78!


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

11 thoughts on “When We Were Paralyzed: Videos From The Infamous New England Blizzard Of ’78

  1. john

    What’s the “we” Brian? Mom and dad haven’t yet decided to have another (?) bouncing baby “bacon eater”. ’78 was the benchmark for storms here on the Jersey shore, my Quadratrack ’76 CJ-7 V-8 chewed right through it. The expression SUV back then might have been miss interpreted as an STD.
    Hope dad’s tractor starts. 🙂

  2. cdub

    This was before my time but this storm wasn’t exclusive to the east coast. I’ve heard my parents talk about how the snow was up to the guttering on their house here in Indiana.

    1. Glen

      I can attest to that cdub. All of central Indiana was hit hard. Indianapolis was virtually shut down during that time. It was an amazing sight and during this same time Interstate 70 was closed from St Louis all the way into Pennsylvania.
      By the time some of the main roads were re-opened, I was climbing the walls to get out.

      1. Bob

        I was in Indiana then as well. It drifted all the way up to the gutters. There was like a tunnel under the eaves of the house. Only a about a six inch to two foot gap between the snow and the roof all the way around the back and one side of the house. I went out to the driveway and could only see the left front headlight of my Camaro. I dug it out then lifted the hood off (glass hood with pins) and under it was another “white” hood. It had totally filled the engine compartment of my car and it looked like it still had the hood on it. Drove through places where they had gone through with huge snow blowers or front loaders and the snow was over two stories high along the roads. You literally would get lost in areas you knew very well.

    2. Julie

      THANK YOU!
      You always hear about the ‘East Coast’ blizzard of ’78, but in reality, Indiana was MUCH worse in ’78.
      I live in South Bend, IN. That was a winter I’ll never forget! I was 16…and the snow here in South Bend, IN was deeper than that of the ‘East Coast!’ I lived on No. U.S.31 (by Stateline Road the main highway that runs N. & S. thru the middle of IN) and walked down the MIDDLE of 31 in WAIST-deep, NON-DRIFT snow…and that was because the center of the 4 lane highway was where the snow was the lowest! THAT was 2 days AFTER the blizzard ended. No exaggeration! The evening the blizzard began was a different story…
      I was at a local ‘Mini-Mart’ at the corner of my block (31 & Auten Rd.) talking with the owner, as I did on occasion, and we were chatting about the weather and how fast the snow was falling/building up on the street. The store wasn’t getting much business at the time, but the owner and I just saw it as a ‘normal’ winter snow, until he decided to turn his little t.v. on behind the counter. He saw that there were “blizzard warnings” and decided to close early, since he wasn’t getting any business. I followed the owner around through the store, still chatting, as he shut everything off and closed up for the evening. In the little time it took to close-up, by the time we got to the door, the snow had piled up so high that we both had to push to get it open.
      Rather than going straight home, I decided to continue walking on my way to my original destination (which was my boyfriends house only 5 houses down Auten Rd. from the ‘mini-mart.’) BIG MISTAKE. Still not realizing how bad the snow was gonna be, by the time I headed home, my boyfriend & his brother had to escort me…for them, it ended up being about a 1-1/2 hour round trip before I got their phone call that they made it home safely. REMEMBER, we only lived around the corner from each other.
      When I got home, everyone was home (me, my 2 younger brothers and my 20 year old cousin that was living with us) but my mother. She had gone that afternoon to visit a friend in the hospital (about 5 miles down 31 into downtown South Bend.) Needless to say, she wasn’t able to make it home due to the weather, and ended up ‘stranded’ at the hospital for 4 DAYS. That’s right…I said 4 days…the kids were left to fend for themselves for 4 days…(heck of a thing for a bunch of kids to deal with, but we did 🙂
      My father has pictures of the snow that was indeed UP TO THE GUTTERS of his 1 story home…and that was the FALLEN snow, NOT the shoveled piles or drifted snow. The pictures were taken of his house from the middle of his residential street, and all you can see is his shingled roof…
      I believe that the reason there aren’t more video records of the IN blizzard of ’78 is because it was nearly impossible for anyone to even get out of their house (or where ever they were held up) to document it…for DAYS!

  3. GoldDart

    I survived that storm, but was away from home a week. I flew out of Toronto on Sunday night for business in the Boston area on Monday and was to return home on Tuesday. My business associate picked me up at the hotel on Monday morning and suggested i get a return flight out of Boston immediately. Not smart enough to take his advise I had to hold up in the Worcester Inn till the next Saturday when the travel ban was lifted. I hitched a ride with another stranded person to Hartford and got a flight home. Good times. Looking at these video’s brings back the memories. I sure would like to have a few of the cars seen here. 8 time Drag Week Co-pilot with Red Light Ross.

  4. Kevin

    Tragically I was at my girlfriends house when the Governor closed the State of CT. I was stuck there for days and her parents were out of state ;-))

  5. Appleseed

    While it might not be the same level of nastiness, that same storm hit Chicago hard, too. That’s how the old man paid for me. Snowplowing. He said he didn’t turn of the 78 Dodge for 2 solid months

Comments are closed.