42nd Anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978

The Winter Chronicle

Local/State

Saturday, January 26, 2018 A4

Volunteers come to the rescue

Thomas W. Schmidlin and

Jeanne Appelhans Schmidlin

Writers

Thousands of volunteers with snowmobiles and four-wheel drives responded to pleas from police statewide to deliver medicine and take doctors and nurses to hospitals. In Cincinnati, 150 four-wheel drives showed up to help the Red Cross. Toledo Edison crewmen were carried to inaccessible trouble spots by volunteers on snowmobiles. Ohio radio stations abandoned regular programming to issue storm information and serve as communication links when electricity and telephone communications failed and highway travel was blocked.

The Miami University basketball team was stranded in Vandalia early Thursday morning returning from a game at the University of Toledo. The team slept in the city jail and then walked to the Franklin Nursing Home, where they assisted 150 residents during the blizzard. The Miami basketball players fed residents, shaved men, mopped floors, and emptied trash, according to the Portsmouth times.

$73 Million agricultural losses

Thomas W. Schmidlin and

Jeanne Appelhans Schmidlin

Writers

Agricultural losses in Ohio totaled $73 Million in dead livestock, lost production, lost crops, and property and equipment damage. More than 90 percent of Ohio's 12 million pounds of daily milk production was dumped Friday when storage and transport was not available. Farmers dumped another $1 million of milk Saturday. Milking machines on modern dairy farms could not be used where electricity had failed. A Pickaway County farmer lost five thousand chickens when blizzard winds blew the roof from the building.

Modern society impacted

Thomas W. Schmidlin and

Jeanne Appelhans Schmidlin

Writers

Comparisons to the other great blizzards of this country, on 12 January 1918, show colder temperatures in the 1918 storm, similar snowfall, and perhaps lighter winds than in 1978. But there was less overall disruption of society in 1918 than in the Blizzard of 1978. Modern day society may be more vulnerable to severe winter storms, in spite of our advanced technology. We depend heavily on our cars for transportation and on electricity for the ordinary routine of life. Thomas Seliga, head of the Atmospheric Sciences program at Ohio State University in 1978, was quoted in the 28 January 1978 Portsmouth Times: "Just 30 years ago I think weather certainly affected us seriously but we were not nearly as socially affected....We were individually able to cope with it because we did not depend on electricity in the home for our heat...and we didn't depend on going to the grocery store as we do today."

house collapse

Above - The storm devastated this house under construction on Royalton Dr. south of Galloway, Ohio. Neighbors said the owner, Joseph George, was building it himself. The wind lifted part of the large house, which had a roof but no windows, off its foundation and dumped it nearby. (Photo courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch archive)

click here to turn to next page