Community Corner

Ahead of 'Nemo,' Locals Remember 1978 Blizzard

Storm hit Long Island 35-years-ago this week.

High wind gusts, white-out conditions and over a foot of snow. It might sounds very familiar but this was the forecast for a snow storm that hit the Northeast 35 years ago this week when from Feb. 5 through Feb. 8 back in 1978 a blizzard blanketed the area.

There’s even a website dedicated to it and it has its own Wikipedia page.

Those old enough to remember it recall snowdrifts covering automobiles and days stuck indoors. (No Internet and for many, no cable television either. How did we survive?)

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We asked on Facebook if people remembered the blizzard of 1978 and here’s what they told us.

“I lived in Port Jeff when it happen,” said Linda Mae Strong.

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For those old enough to remember, Jenn Wolber might make you feel old.

“Sure,” she wrote. “I was exactly a year and one month old!”

Jacquelyn Smith Kirsch does remember it as the year she moved from Connecticut to Long Island at 9-yaers-old.

“My Dad had said that we'd like LI because the winter's weren't as bad here as they were up there,” she wrote. “We laughed and laughed… The snow was drifted 5' up the door of our new home.”

Audrey Eckie remembered too.

“I was in a body cast when the weight of the roof caved in on top of me,” she said.

Georgeine Roberto Coffin asked, “How can you forget?”

“I was 23,” said Brendan Duffy. “At 23, the whole year is a blizzard!”

Lisa Sobierajski Avila said that she remembers school cancelled for a week because of the storm.

“…then for another week for winter break,” she wrote. “We were all so happy until they told us they added extra days to the end of the school year to make up for it.”

And how high did the snow get?

“I had snow drifts to the top of my fence,” said Jill Siegel Metz.

Continue the conversation here. Do you remember the blizzard of 1978? Share your memories in the comments below.


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