The 42nd anniversary of the Blizzard\nof \u201978 is a day away; or at least the start of it. The date was February 6 1978\nand the forecast that Monday morning was nothing extreme, maybe 8-12\u201d expected,\nbut certainly nothing even remotely close to the madness that was coming. I\nwent to work as usual that morning and was assigned to work outside on a\nballast tank under construction. Working outdoors was common for us back then\nas space was scarce and space that included adequate ceiling height for\nsubmarine sections was even scarcer, so a lot of sections were built outside.\nIt was hot in the summer and cold in the winter and was always unpleasant in\nrain or snow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was already snow falling when I\nheaded out into the cold to begin working, but we had already experienced close\nto 2\u2019 of snow in January along with a devastatingly ice storm just the week or\nso before, so I really didn\u2019t give it a lot of thought. I needed a ladder to\nstart my job and I still remember digging around in the snow under the module\nfor a 10\u2019 wooded ladder, which I eventually found and began using. The next few\nhours are hazy to me, mostly because it was, despite the snow falling at an\never-increasingly rapid rate, really just a typical winter work day. As the\nmorning moved along, as usual when it snowed, people began to leave; those who\nhad a long way to drive, those who hated driving in the snow, those who had bad\ncars or bald tires (laughably common back then), or those just looking for an\nexcuse to leave. I lived only five miles from the base \u2013 typically a ten-minute\ndrive \u2013 so I felt no urgency to leave\u2026needed the money to be honest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At some point my boss came out and brought me\ninside and told me to go home \u2013 we were closing down operations. I really have\nno idea as to the time, but I think it was around noontime. But here is where I\nbegin remember with better fidelity and detail. I was driving a 1977 Rally\nSport Camaro, not quite a year old yet. It was a 250cuin straight six with a\n3-speed stick; a pathetic choice for a powerplant in an absolutely awesome car.\n(I ended up trading it in for a 1978 LT Camaro just a few months after this\nepic storm.) Rear wheel drive, as per most all the cars back then, so it sucked\nin the snow, but since, as I just said, most others were also rear wheel drive,\nalmost everyone\u2019s car sucked in the snow. Especially on this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is currently only one way out of\nQuonset Point \u2013 only one road. But back then, there was the one-mile long main\nstraightaway out or you could cut into the old Navy housing complex, which\nwould lead you onto a back local road with which you could get out to Rt.1 \u2013\nthis to avoid the madness that was EB getting out of work pretty much anytime\nday or night, rain or shine. It could, on the best days, be a little Mad Max\nlike on the mile-long raceway out; in the bad weather, you\u2019d give an extra snug\non your seatbelt and it was not uncommon to see men do the sign of the cross\nbefore engaging in that free-for-all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On this day, no one was achieving any\nspeed at all since the snow was already approaching a foot deep; all there was\nwere sliding and spinning cars along with an occasional horn honking along with\na few choice curse-words out the window. The advantage to the main drag out was\nthat the plows had been at least trying to keep up with the snow; the road was\nnot clear by a longshot, but was marginally passable. None the less, I opted\nfor the housing complex and the back roads, hoping to avoid the bumper cars\nsurely one swerve ahead on the access road. So I took the left and took my\nchances on the unplowed road\u2026and immediately got stuck\u2026along with six or seven\nothers trying to duck out the back way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took a while but we all helped each\nother by shoveling and pushing each other\u2019s cars and we eventually all made it\nto the local road, which unlike the housing roads, had been plowed. And a few\nhours after being sent home, I actually got home. And once I did, I discovered\nthat Teri\u2019s sister Lori, who also worked in Quonset (at a different business)\nhad been sent home but hadn\u2019t made it yet. She drove a Carmen Ghia, which was\nterrible in the snow, and we were all concerned. So I hopped back into the car\nand drove back to Quonset looking for a car off in ditch somewhere along the\nroad. I never found her and headed home, to find her there safe and sound \u2013 we apparently\npassed each other on the road but given the incredible winds and the heavy\ndriven snow, we never saw each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was now fairly late afternoon and\nwas glaringly obvious to all of us that this was no ordinary storm. The winds\nwere easily blowing in excess of 60MPH and there a couple of feet of snow had\nalready fallen with no signs of stopping. The only one missing now was Teri\u2019s\nfather, who had left around noon to drive to his job in Providence some 30\nmiles away. He was driving this little yellow Datsun (the company is now called\nNissan) B210 model called a Honey Bee. It was a bright yellow low-cost economy\ncar, sold to folks who had to drive a long way to work and trying to avoid the\noutrageous gas prices we all faced at the time. I used to tease him that my\nmother\u2019s sewing machine had a stronger motor than his car did. Well, that\nlittle motor got him all the way to Providence and then all the way back home\nagain with him rolling up to the house somewhere around 8PM. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning we awoke to snow\nstill falling and winds still whistling; the beast had not yet released us from\nit\u2019s icy torment. I think the news reports officially list it as 33 hours but\nit seemed much more than that. The final snow depth was extremely difficult to\ndetermine; the fierce winds created insane drifting and there was no \u201ccalm\nareas\u201d to try to get a flat snowfall depth. I think 28\u201d is the agreed upon\ntotal, but everywhere I tried to measure it was upwards of 3 to 5\u2019 because of\nthe drifts. Cars just vanished overnight, completely cloaked in the massive\ndrifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am huge fan of science fiction, with\na decided nod to apocalyptic or dystopian hues of the genre. And this blizzard is\nthe closest I\u2019ve ever come to being in such a movie, at least in my first 63\nyears here on earth. Before I continue, some context. There was no internet\nthen. Nor were there PC\u2019s, smartphones, or cable TV. We had three TV VHF\nstations (and a couple of UHF stations on a good day along with some tinfoil)\nand you needed a rooftop aerial to get a shot of seeing any of them. News could\ntake hours to reach the world, or even longer in some cases, so there was no\n\u201clive\u201d reports with minute by minute updates and there was no fleet of weather\npeople with Doppler radar to update us every five minutes with wind and\nprecipitation totals. We were, literally, in the dark. No power, no TV, no\nnews. And no cars \u2013 at all \u2013 the roads, when you could make out where they used\nto be, were empty; empty excepting the shadowed humps of snow that secreted\nabandoned cars beneath them. There was no movement, anywhere. It was if the\nworld had just stopped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it stayed that way for close to a\nweek. Plows fought the snow and drifts and little by little, lanes of travel\nemerged, But the State issued a travel ban and the state and local police enforced\nit with vigor, so there were almost no cars ever seen. But what we did see was\npeople, out everywhere; walking, skiing, sledding, and snowmobiling. In fact,\nsnowmobiles proved to be the chariots of heroes through the crippled state; in\nmany cases they were the only vehicles able to reach homes and people in need,\ndelivering food and medicine to thousands throughout the state. And the other\nthing we saw, everywhere, was shoveling \u2013 people shoveled for days on end\ntrying to uncover their cars, open a path to the road or the shed or\nthe\u2026wherever. Just a lot of shoveling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The storm hit on Monday and by Tuesday\nnight I had my car unburied and had I been allowed to drive, I could have. I\ncalled work to see if they were open on Wednesday and they told me that if I\ncould get there, they had work for me. So I drove to work and quickly\ndiscovered that the \u201cwork they had lined up for me required little more than a\nshovel and a strong back. They loaded myself and five or six others who had\nshowed up into a van and dropped us off in pairs in various locations needing\nshoveling. The big plows and heavy construction equipment (such as front-end\nloaders) were handling the roadways, but they could only get within 20\u2019 of the\nbuildings and the rest had to be hand shoveled, along with countless walkways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the first drop-off; the van\nstopped and the guy in charge point to the building that was about 80\u2019 from us.\nHe said, \u201cSee that area under the overhang? That is a loading dock. See those\ntwo pieces of wood sticking up out of the snow? Those are the handrails of the\nsteps up to the loading dock, which is 5\u2019 high. I need you to shovel from the\nplowed area here in the road to each of the sets of stairs leading up to the\nlading dock.\u201d My partner and I look at each other in disbelief. The area\nbetween snow and the steps was a smooth flat surface leading right up to the\nedge of the loading dock. It seemed inconceivable that there could be a\nfive-foot rise there. And that was when I learned about the amazing things that\nwind and snow can do when they conspire together. It was a massive, 300\u2019 long\nand 80\u2019 wide snow drift! The first couple of shovel scoops were mere inches\ndeep. But each successive shovelful bit into increasingly deeper snow. At the\nhalfway point it was probably 2\u2019 deep; by the time we hit the first step of the\nstairs, the snow was all of 4\u2019 deep and was a royal pain in the butt (and the\nback) to throw up and over the wall of snow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so was my life for the next week,\ninto work to shovel for 10 or 12 hours a day and then home. Because of the\ndriving ban, they gave us all a letter to show to the police in case we were\npulled over (and I was, several times). We shoveled tons of snow \u2013 literally.\nAnd throughout the entire day, every day, and as I was told at night as well,\nevery five minutes or so there was a massive construction dump truck loaded to\nthe hilt with mounds of snow, driving across the base to the seawall where they\nformed a line waiting to back up to the bay and dump their white cargo into it.\nAround the clock, for days on end. I have no idea how many trucks they were\nusing, but there had to have been over 30 or 40 of them, in constant motion\ngetting filled and then dumping. It was amazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recall being dropped off to shovel\nthe south side of HiBay with about five or six others. It is a big building,\n125\u2019 across and around 60\u2019 high at the roof. They could only plow to 10\u2019 or so\nof the hangar doors and they needed the rest hand shoveled. There is an\noverhang and I remember a huge drift hanging off of it, but being so high up, I\nwas underwhelmed with it \u2013 and that proved to be a mistake. After sitting in\nthe warm sun for a few hours, in above freezing temperatures, the snow drift\nfell. All of it. All 125\u2019 across by however deep it was, it silently came down\nall at once. It hit the ground so violently that we were almost knocked off our\nfeet; it was like an earthquake or as if a bomb had gone off. Happily, luckily,\nno one was under it when it fell. We had been under it, on and off, while we\nshoveled and moved about, but we were all clear of it when it dropped. It left\na mound of snow 3-4\u2019 deep and probably six feet across all along the 125\u2019 long building\ndoorway. It was a mind-boggling amount of snow that fell off that overhang.\nThat was probably the scariest moment of the entire blizzard for me personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually power was restored, people\nwere allowed to drive, and news became reliable and regular again and only then\ndid we truly fathom the massiveness of the catastrophe that had befallen our\nstate. We watched the news and sat in silence as they began showing scenes of\nthe thousands of cars left abandoned on Rt.95, making plowing tedious at best.\nIn fact, I believe they eventually just began plowing cars into the banks along\nwith the snow. Stories came in of people trapped away from home in bars and\nrestaurants for up to a week unable to get home. The magnitude of this blizzard\nis probably unfathomable to most younger folks as it is hard to conceive how we\ncould be caught so off guard by the storm and how so many people could have\nbeen stranded. I mean, it was a lot of snow for sure, but not like it should\nhave been so crippling, even with the hurricane force winds. It was an absolute\ndisaster and given today\u2019s weather forecasting systems and instant worldwide\ncommunications thanks to smartphones and the internet, probably could not ever\nhappen again. We can certainly experience that much snow again, and winds like\nthat again, but we\u2019d likely not ever experience such widespread pandemonium and\nbringing the state to a standstill for an entire week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I reflect on history, I think back\nto the stories I\u2019ve read: the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and\neven the Boston molasses disaster. And while the Blizzard of \u201978 is thankfully\nnot on a similar scale as those events, it was a historical event and it is\nsomewhat amazing that I was an active part of it. The funny thing is, it didn\u2019t\nfeel that way during it; it was cool, it was neat, it was funny, and it was\ndefinitely painfully disrupting. But it never felt \u201chistorical\u201d, never felt\nlike the sort of thing you\u2019d be telling tales about 40+ years later. It just\nfelt like life, interrupted. Today\u2019s memories of this old Wolff and the week\nRhode Island took a time out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 42nd anniversary of the Blizzard of \u201978 is a day away; or at least the start of it. The date was February 6 1978 and the forecast that Monday morning was nothing extreme, maybe 8-12\u201d expected, but certainly nothing even remotely close to the madness that was coming. I went to work as usual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\n