My blizzard.
It was twenty-nine years ago today, February 6, 1978. The Northeast got the worst blizzard ever. It began innocuously enough as just another snowstorm, not the blizzard of the century that it would turn into. The school I taught at was dismissed a couple of hours early. Little did we suspect the ferocity that was on its way.
I dawdled nonchalantly at school, chatting in the office with a colleague. I finally left. The snow increased in volume. I went to the bank, the liquor store. The wind picked up and created a white-out condition. As I approached my house from the Frog City direction, my Volvo would not make it up the hill. I went around to try my normal approach. Could not make it up that hill. Too much snow, no traction. I veered into the parking lot of a foundry, abandoned the car there, and walked the rest of the way, about 300 yards, through blinding sand-blasting snow driven by a diabolic wind. The car would remain where it was for six days.
Blinded by snow, I knocked on my front door. As mamma opened, I dropped a bottle of Southern Comfort on the step and it shattered. The snow around the doorway was saturated with my amber liquor. Tears poured from my iced-up eyes. But I was safe at home.
This was a storm as might have been a challenge for Paul Bunyan. Many did not make it home, stranded at work or in-between, often for days. Some times when there is a storm, school is cancelled, some businesses are closed. With this storm, on the other hand, it was home that was cancelled for many. The entire city of Providence became a sub-nival parking lot. Interstate 95 was the same, as folks abandoned their vehicles en masse and tried to make it to shelter, never mind trying to get home. Some huddled in their vehicles for the night. In succeeding days people were not allowed to retrieve their cars from the interstate and other highways. They would all be towed to a holding area where owners could claim them about a week later.
(More.)Two days after the blizzard I was scheduled to take a class of twelve students on a long-planned field trip to New York for a couple of days to see Jon Vickers in Verdi’s Otello at the Metropolitan Opera, along with a backstage tour, and a private Italian film screening I had arranged at MoMA. Of course it would have to be cancelled since almost no one would be able to make it to the train station. There was simply no way to get to it except to walk for miles over the snow, which was four to five feet deep, with drifts over ten feet. But I myself HAD TO GO, because I needed to resell all those expensive opera tickets. The only way to get around was on foot, or by snowmobile if you were lucky enough to own one. Or by dogsled!
Amtrak trains were still operating. So on the morning of February 8, I trudged the five miles to Providence, walking by stranded cars. You could only see their roofs or antennas. At Union Station I encountered one brave student who lived nearby, Bruce Del Signore. No one else had made it. And since he looked sick and sniffly, I sent him back home. I boarded the train. Amtrak would drop stranded workers along the route every few yards through the Providence suburbs as though it were a bus. The engine broke down before New Haven and it took 1 ½ hours to send a replacement. It took 7 ½ hours to get to Penn Station in Manhattan.
Manhattan was the place to be. It had gotten only a mild accumulation, and all public transport was in operation. So I settled in at the Empire Hotel at Lincoln Center, re-sold my twelve extra Vickers-in-Otello tickets. The tickets I had were $18 orchestra seats (which go for twelve times that amount now!)They were instantly snatched up by opera buffs eager to get into the sold out house. I, of course, went to the performance. Verdi’s opera, appropriately, begins with a huge storm as the Moor’s ship enters port. It was the fantastic Franco Zeffirelli production, with dynamo Jon Vickers as jealous Otello, Katia Ricciarelli as wronged Desdemona, Cornell MacNeil as diabolic Iago. James Levine of the curly locks conducted. After it ended, I went to the stage door to have my program autographed by Vickers, Ricciarelli, MacNeill, and Levine. I still have it.
I remained until Saturday, phoning home to make sure my mamma was OK. (My sister lives next door.) My friend Ted had advised me, “Stay where you are. School is not about to re-open for ages.” I went to my arranged screening of Rossellini’s The Flowers of St. Francis at MoMA, just film researcher Elaine Mancini , her friend and I. Elsewhere I saw Bergman‘s The Serpent’s Egg, Kurosawa’s Derzu Uzala, Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave in Julia. I saw the opera Thaïs of Massenet with Beverly Sills, ate at O’Neal’s Balloon, went to the Beacon Baths on 45th Street.
When I returned from New York on February 11, laden with 16mm prints of rare films borrowed from William K. Everson, the streets of Providence were still impassable. I checked the film boxes at the station, walked to Olneyville. From there the roads had been cleared and I was able to hitch a ride to near my house.
Sunday I rose at noon, cooked polenta for mamma and me, went to clear my car, still parked by the foundry. School did not re-open until Wednesday the 15th. Two days later we began another vacation, our regular winter break.
I dawdled nonchalantly at school, chatting in the office with a colleague. I finally left. The snow increased in volume. I went to the bank, the liquor store. The wind picked up and created a white-out condition. As I approached my house from the Frog City direction, my Volvo would not make it up the hill. I went around to try my normal approach. Could not make it up that hill. Too much snow, no traction. I veered into the parking lot of a foundry, abandoned the car there, and walked the rest of the way, about 300 yards, through blinding sand-blasting snow driven by a diabolic wind. The car would remain where it was for six days.
Blinded by snow, I knocked on my front door. As mamma opened, I dropped a bottle of Southern Comfort on the step and it shattered. The snow around the doorway was saturated with my amber liquor. Tears poured from my iced-up eyes. But I was safe at home.
This was a storm as might have been a challenge for Paul Bunyan. Many did not make it home, stranded at work or in-between, often for days. Some times when there is a storm, school is cancelled, some businesses are closed. With this storm, on the other hand, it was home that was cancelled for many. The entire city of Providence became a sub-nival parking lot. Interstate 95 was the same, as folks abandoned their vehicles en masse and tried to make it to shelter, never mind trying to get home. Some huddled in their vehicles for the night. In succeeding days people were not allowed to retrieve their cars from the interstate and other highways. They would all be towed to a holding area where owners could claim them about a week later.
(More.)Two days after the blizzard I was scheduled to take a class of twelve students on a long-planned field trip to New York for a couple of days to see Jon Vickers in Verdi’s Otello at the Metropolitan Opera, along with a backstage tour, and a private Italian film screening I had arranged at MoMA. Of course it would have to be cancelled since almost no one would be able to make it to the train station. There was simply no way to get to it except to walk for miles over the snow, which was four to five feet deep, with drifts over ten feet. But I myself HAD TO GO, because I needed to resell all those expensive opera tickets. The only way to get around was on foot, or by snowmobile if you were lucky enough to own one. Or by dogsled!
Amtrak trains were still operating. So on the morning of February 8, I trudged the five miles to Providence, walking by stranded cars. You could only see their roofs or antennas. At Union Station I encountered one brave student who lived nearby, Bruce Del Signore. No one else had made it. And since he looked sick and sniffly, I sent him back home. I boarded the train. Amtrak would drop stranded workers along the route every few yards through the Providence suburbs as though it were a bus. The engine broke down before New Haven and it took 1 ½ hours to send a replacement. It took 7 ½ hours to get to Penn Station in Manhattan.
Manhattan was the place to be. It had gotten only a mild accumulation, and all public transport was in operation. So I settled in at the Empire Hotel at Lincoln Center, re-sold my twelve extra Vickers-in-Otello tickets. The tickets I had were $18 orchestra seats (which go for twelve times that amount now!)They were instantly snatched up by opera buffs eager to get into the sold out house. I, of course, went to the performance. Verdi’s opera, appropriately, begins with a huge storm as the Moor’s ship enters port. It was the fantastic Franco Zeffirelli production, with dynamo Jon Vickers as jealous Otello, Katia Ricciarelli as wronged Desdemona, Cornell MacNeil as diabolic Iago. James Levine of the curly locks conducted. After it ended, I went to the stage door to have my program autographed by Vickers, Ricciarelli, MacNeill, and Levine. I still have it.
I remained until Saturday, phoning home to make sure my mamma was OK. (My sister lives next door.) My friend Ted had advised me, “Stay where you are. School is not about to re-open for ages.” I went to my arranged screening of Rossellini’s The Flowers of St. Francis at MoMA, just film researcher Elaine Mancini , her friend and I. Elsewhere I saw Bergman‘s The Serpent’s Egg, Kurosawa’s Derzu Uzala, Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave in Julia. I saw the opera Thaïs of Massenet with Beverly Sills, ate at O’Neal’s Balloon, went to the Beacon Baths on 45th Street.
When I returned from New York on February 11, laden with 16mm prints of rare films borrowed from William K. Everson, the streets of Providence were still impassable. I checked the film boxes at the station, walked to Olneyville. From there the roads had been cleared and I was able to hitch a ride to near my house.
Sunday I rose at noon, cooked polenta for mamma and me, went to clear my car, still parked by the foundry. School did not re-open until Wednesday the 15th. Two days later we began another vacation, our regular winter break.