The storm you'll always remember

[chilli]

Do you have that one storm like the blizzard of 77 that stands out in your mind and you'll always remember for all time? For me it was this one.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2010 by chilli

[HTHM]

For me it was the White Death, bizzard of 77, the first time I ever experienced a true disaster

[mercman]

for me it was the 1998 ice storm.i lived for 14 days without electricity in the winter.After the initial panic wore off, we were able to stay warm with the propane fireplace.we bbq'd and use the coleman stove to cook and heat water. i remember almost knocking someone down at CT for the last pack of bAtteries. I apologized in the check out and shared them with him.Huge towers came crashing down in front of my home, and the air was blue with electricity.wild times

[OhioFisherman]

Blizzard of 77 for me too, my longest ride to work ever, 4 hours, and I got there and everyone had gone home. On the bright side? only 3 1/2 hours to get home, I already new what roads were closed.

[walleyejack]

I would have to go with getting caught up in a hurricane on lake Erie about 7 yrs ago out off of Erieau. Was not much fun, captain run the boat aground as oppossed to making it back to the port, just as good we didn t make it,there was some kinda damage in the harbour,lot of damaged boats. Something i will never forget and I am sure my buddies won t either. Wind, hail like small marbles, just ahead of a wind funnel or water spout,what ever you want to call it.

Edited October 14, 2010 by walleyejack

[Jewelbee]

I grew up in Fort Erie so was here for Blizzard of 77.

I live in Ridgeway now, so was also here for Oct storm. I believe we were on generator for 3 days with that one....WHAT A MESS! The freakiest thing was going out at 3 am to fill the generator. Everything so silent. All to be heard was the cracking of breaking branches, and there was the strangest lightning flashes. It was truly the weirdest storm ever!!!

Edited October 14, 2010 by Jewelbee

[solopaddler]

I remember the blizzard of '77 vividly.

 

But this is a no brainer for me.

 

A few years back I was paddling solo down the Misehkow river, a large tributary of the Albany.

 

One night a vicious thunderstorm hit. You know the heavy downpours that usually accompany such storms? Violent but usually short.

 

The heavy monsoon-like rain lasted for several hours. Heavy winds dropped tree branches all around me as I lay unnerved in my tiny tent.

 

The lightning and thunder were intense as well.

 

At one point I timed the flashes with my watch. 10 full seconds of complete brilliance, it was like mid-day..

 

In the early morning it finally cleared and I pushed off downstream.

 

The river was a raging sea of brown mud and had risen I'm guessing at least 15'. It was waaaay over it's banks running 50-80' into the spruce trees on each side of the river.

 

On several occasions I actually paddled through the forest LOL!

 

This crazy high water almost killed me though as my boat ended up being pinned on a sweeper about 10' from the brink of a boiling cauldron of white water LOL!

 

(but that's another story )

[bigugli]

Which storm to remember?

The OCt 13 storm was only vicious in Niagara South/Ft Erie. I was working in Stevensville. Could not see 50 ft in front of me until I hit the escarpment.

 

There was the March storm in 96. I was at Camp Nemo earning my beads as a leader. The snow was getting dicey driving in Friday afternoon. Saturday we were blanketted in heavy wet snow and all the area roads were closed. One of the leaders was having withdrawal because she could not drive out of camp to get her early morning Timmy fix. They got the roads open late Sunday afternoon. Wasn't worried. The cooks figured we had at least 2 days worth of food still left over.

 

The Blizzard of 77 found me walking home from work when they shut down the buses in Scarberia. The 2 1/2 hour walk resulted in severe frostbite to the ears. The skin had split by the time i had got home. After wrapping my head in a towel, our neighbour ran me to the hospital on his skidoo.

 

There was the snow/ice storm of Spring 67. Friday's rain quickly turned to ice, then on Saturday it started to snow for 2 days. The lines were down everywhere. We were told to stay indoors because the lines near our house were down. Took 3 days to turn the hydro back on. We got an extra spring break from school.

[dave524]

Being this is a fishing forum, the one I remember best was 1982 or maybe 83, fishing the Salmon Derby out of Bronte in August. One heck of a squall line appeared over the escarpment onshore, Bill Spicer was onboard with me that day, this was before he went totally fly fishing. I quickly started pulling lines and fired up the big motor, we managed to get to a dock in the harbour just as very strong winds hit and held on and tied up while the intense winds hit and quickly subsided in a few minutes. Made our way to were we had launched at that time and put it back on the trailer. The next morning there was a big write up in the Star, luckily there was a big charter fleet at that time as about three dozen smaller craft had been swamped and only through their effort no lives were lost. For years afterwards that day was referred to as "Black Friday" among the fishing fleet. Should have learned my lesson that day about the big water, but being young pushed my luck offshore on a few occasions even after that

[MJL]

I can’t say I’ve ever lived through a hugely destructive storm. Mostly ones that are just inconvenient.

 

In February or March of 2007 during a massive snow storm (The day of my 3rd yr Management exam), I was walking to the bus stop only to have a flying metal garbage can nail me in the back and knock me to the ground. The snow was blowing sideways and upwards.

 

I got on the Finch bus at 1pm (for a 6:30pm exam)...I was still on the bus at 6pm due to insane amounts of traffic. Some of the Seneca students who boarded the bus along the way, had serious cases of BO . It took the bus 5hrs to drive from Kennedy & Finch to Leslie & Finch (Or 6.1km). Stupid Ryerson finally canceled classes at 6pm when all other universities and colleges in southern Ontario canceled theirs in the morning. I got off the bus and my dad and sister rescued me from the Asian plaza at Leslie & Finch...It took them an hour and a half to drive to me and it took an hour to get home through all the side streets. It didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten lunch (or dinner) and only had 11 cents in my pocket when I was at the plaza – I was beastly hungry.

[OhioFisherman]

Also got caught up in this mess.

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/40_years_ago_holiday_storm_rav.html

[DRIFTER_016]

Probably the one I will remember most was in the spring of '96.

We had been in our new home in the country for just under a year when a nasty spring storm turned the sky green, dropped hail, torrential rain and produced high winds and a tornado just west of our house. The tornado entered Luther Marsh and spit into two before re-combining just before exiting the marsh and damaging the farm next to us. Before it would hit our house it abruptly changed course and hopped over the road and completely destroyed the two farms there as well as damaging our neighbours place right across the street. It snapped trees in our yard and flung them across the street, sucked the barn doors off the next barn down the street, wiped out 7 hyreo towers and a mile of power line before heading North East toward Sherburne where it hit a trailer park in Violet Hill.

 

The following day I found a 3# plus smallmouth bass in the back yard.

My guess is it was sucked out of Damascus resevoir and depositied there.

[Beans]

Seeing as how I got a few more miles on me than some on here I remember as a kid crawling over large snowbanks with a friend of mine in the winter of '44 only to find there was no school that day...oh darn eh !!!...Even Mel Lastman couldn't call in the army as we were still at war...

 

I also remember having to walk home from downtown Toronto to Rhodes Ave. to pick up my son at the babysitters during the '54 Hurricane Hazel and her giving me what for because I was late and she had a date..."Have you looked outside lately lady?"

 

Then having to push the baby carriage up Coxwell Ave then over near Woodbine Ave...Never been so wet in my life !!!

[bow slayer]

For me it was the blizzard of January 26-27 1978. I was in my first year in high school in London and one of my buddies Dad died in the storm on Commissioners Rd ,he got stuck in a drift and was left stranded. He kept the car running to keep warm and died from carbon monoxide ,the tail pipe was block by the snow and the fumes came back into the car.

[Twocoda]

the storm of 77 was an awsome time for us at the age of 13...we literally skated EVERYWHERE ..up and down snowbanks to houses to shovel out laneways it was like living on a frozen lake in london...we were 3 days with no power and our fish tank froze solid...

[jjcanoe]

The Barrie Tornado is one I'll always remember, but for a different reason......It happened on the first day of my first canoe trip to Algonquin Park. We waited more than half the day for the water taxi to take us across the lake and when they finally took us across, (it would be their first and only run of the day) they decide to suspend the service for the rest of the day after trying us as guinea pigs hopping from leeward shore to islands then downwind to our landing (Proulx Lake portage). the wind actually snapped a pole on one of our tents (a brand new dome tent) and we lost some unsecured gear and wet clothes off the line into the lagoon. The rest of the trip was great (other than some burned spagetti) stopped at Webbers on the way back, someone grabbed a paper which showed some pics of the damage. it wasn't until we hit the racetrack area along the 400 that we truely realized the extent of the damage. WOW! and this was 5 days after it had happened. that's something that I'll always remember

 

jjcanoe

[Tarzan's Jane]

I was 6 years old, living in Mattawa and a huge thunderstorm came through. We were in school and were told to go home. I remember being with my little friend and the lightning and thunder and the rain was so so scary. We held each others hand and started walking the 8 blocks home. At first we started laughing, then we began crying and then I peed my pants. There were other kids around us walking home too but it truly was my first experience outside in a thunderstorm and I was more than scared. I thought I was going to get in trouble for soiling my pants but then the thought came to me that who would know....I was already soaking wet.

[BITEME]

Hurricane Hugo in 89 I believe

 

We were ordered to slip Charleston South Carolina and head for open seas(to bad lots of pretty women and good times)

We went straight into the the front unbelievably powerful storm next was the eye which to this day has been the most sureal event of my life and then the back side all you could see was a wall of black very evil looking at some point the seas were at 50 feet maybe more. I can tell you 5000 tons and 300odd feet of steel are insignificant a nat actually it definatley stands way up in my top 10 of weirdness in life as you know that year Charelston was near vaporized by this storm.

 

Peter

[Billy Bob]

I'm a old fart compared to some of you young wipper snappers so I have several memories of storms starting with the Bizzard of '77 all the way through the Oct storm of '06.

 

Blizzard of '77 hit on January 28th my birthday.....in my small town we were hit VERY hard and back then I owned a 1977 4X4 Chevy Blazer. That was when SUV's were not a big hit and almost nobody had four wheel drive trucks. So being a firefighter even way back then I reported to our police department and volunteered my services, Blazer and all with my brother in-law riding shotgun. We pulled many vehicles out of snow banks that with my Warn Winch I had mounted on the front bumper. But the biggest thing we did is when the police captain asked me if we could get to a certain street in town as a lady was in labor and need to get to the hospital (6-7 miles away)....so with brother in-law and my trusty beast of a 4X4 Blazer we made it to her house and helped her into the vehicle taking about 1 hour to go the 6-7 miles to the hospital. Never did hear if it was a boy or girl.

 

In 1985 we also had a BIG STORM and I was still working on the railroad at the time. But it was my day off, actually 2 days off. However, I called into work and asked if I should come into work (trying to find some overtime at their expense of course). The goofy boss I talked to didn't realize it was my day off so said, Yes I guess we can't stop you thinking it was my regular day to work....you see when a storm first hits on the railroad everything stops until they can catch up on cleaning the switch points, etc.... so I knew it would be a easy day at time and half and I just got the OK from the big boss. So I reported to work at the west end of the yard that was my work location at the time but of course NOTHING was moving so I settled in drinking coffee and playing cards at time and a half until a foremen showed up and ask if anyone would interested in being the cook on the wreck train that was parked near the repair shop to feed everyone who was stuck at work and trying to dig out of this storm. Since I enjoy cooking I volunteer and ended up cooking for 4 days around the clock making a TON of money in the process...

 

We also had a VERY BIG snow storm on that started on Christmas Eve I believe around 1999-2001.....the lake effect storm just sat on us the whole weekend and dumped 7 feet of snow in three days...YES, SEVEN FEET of wet heavy snow to the point people's roofs were caving in. I started to get a crack in my ceiling dry wall near the front door so my sons and I went up on the roof and shoveled it off as MANY people were doing the same.

 

Now that brings us to the Surprise October storm of 2006...I remember when it started snowing and calling my sons who both were going to college in Central NY and telling them we are getting some snow and it's actually starting to stick which was VERY unusual for this early in the year.......bottom line look at my pictures below...BTW we had no power for 7 days and had to have the electric service redone coming into the house and a new main fuse box because water dripped into it from the damage.

[fisherman7]

For me it was the Blizzard of '77. I was living in Port Colborne at the time and I remember there was a break in the storm and I went to the store to pick up a few supplies for the neighbours. What was weird was I followed the telephone lines which were at my waist! The drifts were huge.

 

Or a few years ago at a northern outpost lake we got caught in a huge storm. Rained so hard it hurt and I couldn't see my son who was in the same boat as me. Pulled to shore to wait it out but I was suprized we didn't capsize on that small lake.

[Dutchy]

When I lived in Pittsburgh in 2002

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20020601storm0601p2.asp

[jjcanoe]

When I lived in Pittsburgh in 2002

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20020601storm0601p2.asp

What about our bass opener storm LOL!!

[chilli]

I grew up in Fort Erie so was here for Blizzard of 77.

I live in Ridgeway now, so was also here for Oct storm. I believe we were on generator for 3 days with that one....WHAT A MESS! The freakiest thing was going out at 3 am to fill the generator. Everything so silent. All to be heard was the cracking of breaking branches, and there was the strangest lightning flashes. It was truly the weirdest storm ever!!!

The freakiest thing for me was the sound of the thunder. The lightning was erie enough but the thunder sounded like some kind of computer generated sound. I was on some meds at the time that were making me paranoid and this storm hit. They had generators salesmen selling out of the back of trucks down Garrison Rd.

 

Mercman your encounter sounds the worst. It must have seemed like the end of civilization. Did the Noah's ark story cross your mind?

[mercman]

The freakiest thing for me was the sound of the thunder. The lightning was erie enough but the thunder sounded like some kind of computer generated sound. I was on some meds at the time that were making me paranoid and this storm hit. They had generators salesmen selling out of the back of trucks down Garrison Rd.

 

Mercman your encounter sounds the worst. It must have seemed like the end of civilization. Did the Noah's ark story cross your mind?

 

after the first couple of days, all the neighbors pulled together and shared what we had.At one time i had 16 people sleeping on the livingroom floor in front of the fireplace.funniest thing was when i took the dogs out for a pee at night,the full moon made everything look like crystal. Awesome experience, but im prepared for the next one.

[Moosebunk]

Ice storm.

 

Hallucinogens, keg O' beer, toboggans, woodstove and a BBQ. Hizneckuva a slippery slope way out there in Maberly. lol.