I meant to post this on the 30th anniversary of the start of the big blizzard, but I was too busy working in Houston at the time. Seems that everyone has their Blizzard of 1978 story. Here's mine:
It all started on January 25, 1978. I was a senior in high school. We were gonna get a whopper of a snowstorm, maybe even a foot of snow. There was snow already on the ground. My brother and father took precaution and placed 2-3 days worth of hog feed, in bags, up in the rafters, and haylofts of all the locations where we had hogs. Dad placed heat lamps on the tractors and trucks that we would be needing the next few days.
The wind howled all night, and as the temperature dropped you could hear the snow turn to ice pellets. As expected, school was called off, our first snow day. I was looking forward to sleeping in. But then Mom woke us all up. There was a rat in the kitchen. I've blogged about this particular episode here. After the rat was eliminated, we began to plot our escape. The west end of the house including the garage door was completely blocked by a snowdrift up to the gutter on the roof. The front porch was accessible but then you had to climb over a four foot drift a few steps out. My brother had recently bought a used snowmobile. It turned out to be a Godsend. That day, he and Dad fed the hogs by snowmobile. The temperature was zero, and the wind chills were 40-50 below zero. There were wind gusts up to 55 mph that day. My brother had snow goggles but visibility was nearly non-existent. I got to stay in that day, since it was too dangerous to be outside.
As conditions worsened, the Indianapolis airport was shut down, and all the interstates were closed. A state of emergency was declared in Central Indiana. The only vehicles moving were snowmobiles and Army tanks.
The next day, I got my winter gear on: Long underwear, jeans, coveralls, boots, sweatshirts, face mask, and it still wasn't enough to cut the bitter cold. My brother took my Dad down to one of the hog lots and dropped him off. Then he came back for me. I just could not believe all the snow. It was everywhere! We cut across the field because there was less snow there than in the road. The snow in the road was even with the fence posts, about 5 feet deep; higher when it met a structure like a barn. Since the storm ended with sleet, the snow was very hard. That made it hard to dig out. On the plus side, you could drive the snowmobile right over the fence without fear of sinking down and getting stuck in the fence. Some of the lots we got partially dug out. We only let out as many sows as the outside lot would hold, and then just long enough for them to get a bite to eat and a drink of water. Then we'd let another few out. I think some of the sows we had to feed in their pens. It's all kind of a blur now. I know it took us all day just to feed them once. Normally the sows got fed twice a day. I remember my brother took me home down the road on the snowmobile. The snow was blowing, so I really couldn't see where we were going, he just kept driving parallel to the telephone poles. We would be riding along about 5 feet above the ground and you'd hit the end of a big drift and be back at ground level for a few feet. Then back up. Then down. I was about to toss my cookies by the time I got off the snowmobile.
Finally on Saturday, the winds died down and the sun came out. One thing you should know: Pigs like the cold weather. Temps between 10 and 50 degrees are just about perfect for them. As we took out on the snowmobile that day we began to see dark spots in the snow a ways off. It seems that the big sows that were cooped up in little hog houses outside decided to take a stroll...right over the fence. Yes the snow was packed down enough where a 700 lb sow could just walk right over the fence, with her little ones following behind. My brother and Dad had to furiously dig out the perimeter of this hog lot and dig out the gate so that we could drive them back in. My job was to keep track of the sows so they didn't wander off to the next county. We each got a big herder gate and coralled the sows and drove them back into their lot. Then we spent the remainder of the day, digging out the hog lots with the loader tractor before we could turn the sows loose from their farrowing pens. Otherwise, the situation would repeat itself with wandering sows everywhere.
My uncle Bill just laughed at my Dad having his hogs living outdoors. Bill also farmed, and had an engineering degree from Purdue. He had built hog confinement buildings a few years prior and all of his pigs were indoors. Except for a large population of fat hogs out on the "feeding floor". It was a long patch of cement with a covered area on the west end, for the pigs to sleep. The feed automatically came down from an overhead chute into some feeders and the hog fountains were towards the other end. A few days later, the winds kicked up again from the west, and with the huge amount of snow still on the ground, plus some new fresh snow, the snow came up and over the back of the feeding floor, filling it with three feet of snow. The hogs were trapped in their sleeping quarters, but not in immediate danger. But they were starting to panic. My uncle Bill had to use a bobcat and several tractor loaders to clear off the floor. They just stacked the snow right over the outside fence surrounding the feeding floor. Then my Dad laughed at his brother Bill.
Another day, we were trying to thaw out a hog fountain. I don't remember the actual temperature, but I remember that the wind chill was 76 degrees below zero. Even hogs won't come out for a drink when it's that cold. We had a Nipco heater under a tarp trying to thaw this damn thing out. Dad, my brother, and I were all huddled under the tarp. Then the Nipco heater would cut out, and start emitting fumes. We'd go scurrying from the tarp, coughing, back out to the cold. We'd have to unplug it and then plug it in again. Back under the tarp. Cut out again. Gag, cough. Back to the cold. Unplug, plug. Repeat. It was just miserable. All the time we kept the pickup truck running for fear it would not start again in the cold weather.
Once the road was plowed out, it was just a one lane tunnel. The snow was stacked up for eight feet on either side. The slightest breeze, and the snow would drift the road back in. Dad had to plow the road daily. This went on for weeks. Some neighbors tried to follow Dad down the road as he plowed. He asked them where they thought they were going; the roads were closed at either end. He told them to go back home.
We had plenty of food in the house. Mom was always ready for a nuclear disaster and had enough food for a few months. We ate well. My sister, brother, and I worked a lot of jigsaw puzzles.
We did have some fun though. Dad had a field where he stored the old hog houses. The snow drifts were clear up the backside to the top of the hog house. It made the perfect ramp. It was so much fun to just totally haul ass on the snowmobile and know that you're not going to hit anything but snow. One day my brother and I drove it to Fayette, five miles away, to get a gallon of milk. Finally when the county snowplows got to our road, I knew it was time to head back to school.
I think we were out of school for two straight weeks. 21 snow days my senior year. And we didn't have to make up the days because, by March, there was an energy crisis due to a coal strike (thank you, Jimmy Carter). Half the lights were shut off and we were served cold lunches. They didn't want to have the extra expense of heating the school. I was one of the few who would have rather been at school, considering the alternative.
All in all, 20+ inches of snow fell in a 72 hour period. The record still stands today. I hope to be in a sunny climate, south of here, if that record is ever broken.
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