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Originally Posted by MAB32
Now on a side note. In NEO we experieced our version of the "Perfect Storm" over the lower Great Lakes. It was a very deep low with a record barometer reading at the end of December 31 and through January 1 1976/77. Temperatures droped throut the day until sundown when we hit record lows of -10 to -20 degrees without wind chill which was on most occassions at 30 to 45 knots. It started in the morning when people were on their way to work and within an hour we had already 7+ inches and the street plows where now begining to loose the battle when the accumalations began to reach the 14-16 inches. In fact they ended up buried themselves. The snowflakes were at least two inches in diameter visibilty was absolute zero I remember that people were stranded everywhere there was a road or highway. It snowed a record total of acumalation of 4+ feet and that was the least amount some people recieved to my AO had a total of 5+ feet. Now here is where it gets interesting. Thirteen people died on interstates 77 & 76. They died either (most of them) form Hypothermia or Carbon Monoxide poisoning. They waited for 2 days for rescues that didn't come until the ONG started flying rescue missions and this was until the ONG pilots could make into work. The Govenor mobalized the entire ONG to come to our AO and when they did come they came by M-113's, tanks with plows on the front, massive road graders, or by Chinook and Hueys. Now these stranded drivers were ALL within a few hundred yards to one or more houses. It would appear that some either were afarid to ask for help or didn't want to leave there vehicle while they were safe and warm. The people that died of Hypothermia had used up all their gas and just waited it out with no supplies or even a blanket. They went to sleep freezing and never woke up.
Now, why would these people not leave their vehicles and head for a house?
This still blows my mind when I read books on our "Perfect Storm. What could they possibly have been thinking as they were dying within eyesight of a house with heat and smoke pouring out of the chimneys?
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Originally Posted by Retired W4
I was living in Dayton at the time. Drove from Middletown to Dayton that night up I-75 by staying in the tracks of the few semi's crazy enough to still be on the road. Once home, the only thing that saved me was a 7-11 on the corner. They got snowed in too. "Oh, thank heaven for 7-11". I had just left the OHNG,Trp D, 1-238th Cav. My buddies out of Columbus did a lot of great flying to save people and livestock.
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I was an ROTC cadet at Bowling Green State University at that time (site of the heaviest snowfall - we didn't get the NG to dig us out, we got the 82d Airborne). My fellow cadets pulled duty monitoring various radios, going out with the National Guard in Duece and a halves, and those of us who had cross-country skis (three of us that I recall) would ski from the truck on the roadbed to houses to check on anyone in them. We delivered needed meds, food, etc. to a number of people who were shut in by the snow.
A number of houses were so buried by snow drifts that they weren't visible from one side (often the side facing the road). In that part of the state, vehicles that went off the roads often dropped completely out of sight. In one case, I went past a house that we could see from the road, turned around and could not only not see the house, could not see the road. If I hadn't been aware of the cardinal direction that I had gone out (West) and how the road ran (North- South), I might not have got back to the truck. A number of vehicles were off of I-75, not far from BG. Anyone who remembers I-75 back then in that area can tell you that it is very possible even without snow to have been driving within a few hundred meters of a house and never see it. Add drifts that sometimes exceeded 20 feet (no exagerration, I skied up some of those slopes) and it is quite understandable why people stayed in their cars. As a matter of fact, going from one dorm to another on campus (a trip of 100 meters between five story buildings with absolutely flat ground between them) was physically impossible without some sort of physical assistance.