BUFFALO, NY – A city known for challenging winters is marking the 40th anniversary of what by most accounts, was the harshest weather event in its history.
The catastrophic “Blizzard of ‘77”.
The Blizzard struck on Friday morning, January 28, about 11 o'clock, with a fury unmatched before or since.
Within two hours, the snow was bumper high, leading motorists to abandon 8-thousand cars where they stood.
Within four hours, the temperature fell nearly 30 degrees, and with near hurricane force gusts, the wind chill dipped to 60 below zero.
Street crews leaving the city’s Broadway Barns quickly turned back, unable to even see the blades on their snow plows.
We were at nature's mercy.
And she was merciless.
Workers unable to get out of downtown to escape the storm’s onslaught, flocked to wherever they could.
2,700 attempted to bunk at the Statler Hilton Hotel, with many trying to sleep on the lobby floor.
Hundreds more bedded down at Memorial Auditorium where the wind was so strong, it tore an 80 foot section of the roof off.
Fires that broke out just burned, as there was no way to get in to put them.
Across the rural parts of Western New York, the winds whipped the snow into 30 foot drifts.
Buffalo: Meteorologically Ripe for the Pickings
Interestingly, the amount of new snowfall from the blizzard was only about 10 inches, a snowfall amount the city could normally handle.
However, meteorological occurrences prior to the storm, made the city vulnerable for the blizzard which came.
The winter of 1976-77 had been brutally cold, which caused Lake Erie to freeze over on December 12 …earlier than it ever had, in recorded history.
There had already been 150 inches of snowfall in the Buffalo area that winter, with 68 coming in the days of January leading up to the storm.
Without any mid-winter thaw, the snow which had piled up to a depth of 12 feet on the frozen lake, had maintained a lighter and fluffier character than it otherwise might have.
Consequently, when the winds began roaring, it picked up all that snow, and scattered it on the region.
Memories Frozen In Time:
Those old enough to remember the storm will surely never forget it.
"I remember it very well," said NY State Assemblyman Sean Ryan.
Ryan was 12 at the time of the storm, and remembers getting a week off from school as a result.
"The wild thing about that blizzard is you could rarely go outside. We tried once or twice to slide down some of the big dunes but in a matter of minutes the winds would kick up and you couldn't see anything," Ryan recalled.
The wilder thing about the Blizzard of 77 is that it would rage on...for four days.
And even when it began to subside, the gravity of it all was just dawning as police began finding the bodies of motorists frozen in their cars.
Eventually, 23 deaths would be directly attributed to the storm.
A beleaguered Mayor Stanley Makowski, who declared a state of emergency, pleaded for anyone with a snowmobile, or a plow, to try and help.
He also reached out to President Carter for aid.
To help the city dig out, 300 troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina joined New York National Guardsmen manning snow moving equipment and helicopters, which at one point totaled 38, flying reconnaissance and rescue missions over the region.
Because Buffalo was a city cut off in terms of transportation, store shelves became increasingly bare and though some producers of food tried mightily to meet the demand for basics, they were hampered by both a reduced pool of workers and in many cases, were unable to deliver their goods
to market.
Even the U.S. Postal service was stymied by the storm, which prevented mail delivery for several days.
Eventually, the economic impact of the storm including lost wages and benefits, loss of profits and sales for businesses, property damage and the cost of cleanup, would total $541 million.
Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $2.1 billion today.
Rich Kellman, who anchored Channel 2’s coverage of the storm while being stuck at the station’s Delaware Avenue studios for several days, submitted the following recollection of the Blizzard of 77.
-It was, and still is, the worst storm in the area’s history. And yet we recall it with nostalgia, and even affection. Babies were born, friendships were forged. People helped each other. The Blizzard did enormous damage, but it also defined us as tough and resilient and caring.
Could you ever forget it? Friday, January 28, just before noon. We’d been clobbered already by 28 straight days of snow, the coldest January ever in Western New York. The storm roared in from over the lake, lightning flashed, proclaiming that this was different, something we’d never seen before.
Visibility dropped to zero. Workers tried to get out of town. Many abandoned their cars. They found shelter wherever they could. Some at the Statler, where people slept in the lobby and hallways. And about a dozen where I worked, at Channel 2 on Delaware Avenue.
Barry Lillis, Ed Kilgore and I took them in off the streets. We spent the night huddled in what we called the sponsor’s booth, a glass-paneled viewing area overlooking the studio. There was a liquor cabinet. By morning, feeling somewhat mellow and filled with the milk of human kindness, we’d all promised each other eternal friendship, should we survive. I don't think we saw each other again.
At the height of the storm, a couple newly-arrived from Russia found themselves stranded in Williamsville. Their first day in America. Several airline pilots staying at a motel on Main Street took them in and paid for their hotel room. My wife and I met the couple shortly after, and we’ve remained friends to this day.
Cynthia Toy of East Aurora tells how her son Brennan was born during the storm. Lori DiCillis was about to be born at home, and wrote in an essay that her mother was watching "Roots" on TV when labor pains hit. Ambulances couldn't get through. Suddenly, as the Buffalo News reported, the doorbell rang. At the door stood "two giant men hidden behind layers of coats, hats, mittens and heavy boots, exposing nothing but their bloodshot eyes."
They told her father: "We were sent here to take your wife to the hospital." And they did. As the News reported, the two were among the hundreds of heroes who materialized out of nowhere throughout the brutal onslaught.
That's the heart of the story. Winds up to 69 miles an hour, wind chills of minus 60, $300-million in damage, the area designated a Federal Disaster Area.
Mayor Makowski said, "the City is fighting for its life," and an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan showed up to assure us that help was on the way. That aide was Tim Russert.
Through all this, we retained our integrity, we kept our character intact, we proved to the world how resilient we are. Some took to calling us the snow capital of the country, which we are not.
Other places like Syracuse have more. But it brought out the best in us and further defined us as a community you can count on. And that’s what I’ll remember.
All of us remember where we were when it happened. And those too young to remember, are hearing the stories that have passed into legend, the stories that bind us together in the flow of the history we all share.
--Rich Kellman