Blizzard of 66 - Rochester, NY
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- čas přidán 19. 08. 2007
- I was only a kid when it hit, but I remember snow up to the gutters and almost 2 weeks off from school right after Xmas vacation! For those in the heat wave this summer, I hope this takes your mind off from it :)
We had so much snow it had buried my neighbor's VW with over 3 to 4 ft of snow on top of his car six days later when the plows came through there was a 12 ft giant snowblower from Pulaski New York that came through and cleared our streets. It did not see the VW in the road and I remember seeing a muffler and engine and a door come through the snowblower after it chewed up the VW in its entirety. It took us 7 days to clear out our driveway and I remember my dad walked to a neighboring store to get a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk for us kids even though the store in normal weather was 10 minutes away it took him a little over an hour just to buy those two items. I will never forget the blizzard of 66
“a once every 30 years storm” how prophetic. blizzard of ‘96.
I was 16 at the time. I went to work at a Keystone gas station on main st. at 10pm, by 2am. it was a foot deep. Ended up stuck there for almost 3 days. only traffic was plows, Had to stay open so they could get gas. Needless to say Keystone was not happy about having to pay me for so many hrs.
You got nothing compared to Oswego... I lived about a mike from the lake... we had snow over the top of our trailer! If my father had not been working in Fulton, we may have never gotten out!
I was a Nursing Student at Highland Hospital. The snow was already falling, but my Father got me back to the dorm. The next morning the intercom announced "all Students are to report to the Nursing Office for assignments". We staffed the hospital for three days, as regular staff could not get into work. 😊
Boy do I remember the Blizzard of 1966 ...
I was 15 living on Lowden Point Rd, Greece, NY. We were told it could be weeks to open our street. One gentleman had a plow truck and another had a trash truck. Between the two of them and help along the way from others on the road we opened up Lowden Point Rd all the way from Interlaken Rd to Edgemere Dr.
That took most of the day. We cheered when we broke through to Edgemere as it was already opened by the big Oshkosh blower from the Monroe County Airport.
I was 17 but still enjoyed climbing to the top of 10-foot snow piles. My mother made me walk to a dairy on Joseph Ave to get milk, about a half mile away. It took forever. I also saw a drunk fall in a drift and told my dad. He went out to help him and fell in the drift too and couldn't get out. I went out and helped them both. The drunk offered my dad his six-pack, which he turned down.
I remember '66 very well. We had a similar storm in 1958. Both storms started on Sunday and we were stuck at home in Hemlock until Thursday when they brought a rotary snow plow in from the Livingston Co. Hwy Dept. to open up Rt. 15A. Snowmobiles were new back then and someone went to Livonia 5 miles away with a sled in tow to pick up Rx and milk and other supplies. We made it through because everyone helped each other. We all cared about our neighbors.
Hey I was 5 and in kindergarten! I remember it because the way my parent reacted, I knew it was a big deal! Plus even in Kindergarten I could appreciate an imprortu "winter break" (a week of of school). We lived in Rochester, Mt Hope Ave had one lane open, the asme lane for both directions, for emergency vehicles!
I remember that storm, I was only 10. My father shoveled out the driveway, snow that was over a foot over his head. I think Rochester got it worse than Buffalo. In 77 the entire winter was snowbound. Well over 200 inches.
WOW! All that snow. SO COOL! I live in Indiana, and I've been told that we used to get lots of snow every winter....i guess that was back in the seventies & eighties. Now we don't get hardly any snow at all...it totally swallows!!
Snow covering windows, up to the gutter. I lived in Rochester on Scottsville Road, across from Olympic Bowl and by the airport. I was 21 and worked for Norry & Co (real estate company) and my husband was a graduate student at the University of Rochester. I had not done my grocery shopping on Saturday and Sunday the stores were closed due to Blue Laws. So I planned to grocery shop Monday after work. Oh, no, that did not happen!! Remember weather forecasting was very primitive. No one had a clue we were going to have a storm like this come in. Monday morning I woke up to all dark windows - pitch black. I looked at the clock on the wall, and again at my watch. Both said 8:00a.m. I felt like "something" weird was going on!! Was I dreaming? I called my husband who told me the windows were black because snow was so deep and light could not get through the snow. Snow was up to our gutters, covering the windows. We could not open the door as it opened to the outside and was under snow. My husband crawled out an upper window, let himself down on a rope and walked 1/2 mile to store in waist deep snow. They were rationing food and all he could get was a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. We were trapped inside our mobile home until Thursday when the National Guard came with payloaders and dump trucks and dug us out. They took the snow to railroad cars and then the cars took the snow and dumped it out of town. They plowed the streets one lane wide with the snow on both sides going straight up 15 feet. All we could see were street / stop lights and street names if it hung on the light cables overhead. Otherwise you had no idea where you were, nothing was visible on either side (just the tunnel of snow), no stop signs, no street names, no buildings. At that time (1966) there were no GPS - you just had to guess where you were. We never lost power or heat. Snow and snowstorms just did not cause those kinds of problems in Rochester. I now live in Alabama and it is not uncommon for a thunderstorm to cause loss of power here and yet Rochester withstood blizzards without losing power. I'll never forget it - it was a grand adventure.
I was about 9 when the blizzard hit -I remember it -have a pic of me standing on the somewhat cleared sidewalk with snow way over my head on each side-what fun we had sliding down those snow hills!!
Rochester native here. Love this video!
I was 15 yrs old and lived in Kendall NY. A small town 30 miles west of Rochester. We had so much snow that they had to dynamite the snow off some roads. Didnt have school for a week.
we lived on Kenmor Road in that town! i was due to hatch in August of that year! lol!
I was 13 when this hit us! The snow was plowed so high on both sides of Route 350 that I could reach up and touch the electrical wires. I'll never forget that storm. My Mom walked cross field to Walworth and the IGA for food!
What a rush seeing this footage again. Dad has old home movies of this. I was only 4 but I remember odd things. I remember opening our front door to the porch & seeing a wall of snow totally blocking our exit from the house! I also recall our neighbor's dad, returning home, stranded @ Kodak for a day, pledging to get the hell out of Rochester come spring. And they did! The family moved to South Carolina! Also on a bizarre note, a dog was found frozen in a snow bank down the street. Sad but true.
I was working on a farm when that storm hit. Milked and fed 80 plus cows by hand for a week. We had no food to speak of so, my boss and his friend that was visiting cross country skied to Shortsville to get provisions. After the snow stopped, it took close to 3 days for the town to get the road open. 1966 and the storm of 1957 were nothing I would want to go thru again.
I was almost 13 years old then; I remember it well. At that time, my sister and I had fun in the snow.
I do remember the 1966 snow storm, it was great, No school and I made a LOT of money shoveling snow. I remember snow covering the front windows of out house, it was like digging out from an igloo, I loved it, of course I was only 15 yes old then.
I remember the brand new Sears store in Fairmount Fair plazza in Camillus had the roof cave in.
The factory I worked in was closed for 3 days.
It was not as cold as the blizzard of 77 but the snow caused me more inconvenience. Never missed any work in 77. But it was 15 below zero and bitter.
I was a young Biology teacher in the Rush-Henrietta schools. I lived on Genesee Park Blvd at the time. Schools as well as the University of Rochester were closed for a week. There were walking pathes in the snow in the middle of streets as the sidewalks were buried.
I had a 4 month old baby with ear infection and had to walk and beg for milk for her at a restaurant on south ave..
The snow was up to second floor and drifted up over the garage.My car was buried for 1 week..In Feb I left for Calif.
The railroad he city were hiring people to shovel snow, they loaded alot of snow into dump trucks and It was right around my 17th birthday which I celebrated at Frank Master's bar on N. Clinton and Sullivan, then walked to a friends place near Clifford and Hudson where I spent the night. Then I shoveled snow for about a week,
I remember it very well! Had the week off of school!!
I remember it. We lived in the Lyell-Otis neighborhood. When it finally settled down, the teen-age boys on our street began shoveling everyone's walk so they could at least get to the street, which I think had been somewhat plowed by then.
It was an unforgettable event. The Saturday night before the storm, I had taken my girlfriend to Loew's Pittsford Plaza to see "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold". (I wasn't thrilled with the movie.) We came out to huge snowflakes falling -nothing special there either. Woke up the next morning for my delivery job at Kurlan Pharmacy in Henrietta-and had a bit of a struggle getting there in my 57 Chevy (with fairly bald tires). We closed the store at noon and stopped deliveries. I tried to get home -but the car by then couldn't make it through the snow up the slight grade to our street. Had to park it 1/2 mile down the road at Bowl-A-Roll. I tried to be polite and park it out near the road. The next 24 hours or so the howling wind and sideways snow was relentless. After the blizzard had stopped -the sun came out (and it got cold). I went down to rescue my car. The drivers side (because the windows faced west) was pretty filled with snow. The wind had blown it in through the "wings" (side windows)-even though it was closed. I scooped the snow out and got in to start the car. Other than the snow INSIDE the car, outside it was unscathed. Turned the key-nothing. Lifted the hood-the snow was packed inside the engine compartment so tight you couldn't budge it. Further up Jefferson Road was a Mobile (Esso?) station -and it was the only one open. They towed the car, sprayed water on the engine compartment for an hour --3 hours later it finally started. I had been cooped up for 3 days and couldn't be happier. Something good came from the blizzard as well. We lived within 2 miles of 4 local radio stations. One of the stations (WSAY) had its studios on French Road-at the transmitter site at the time. This was the station that would hire anyone who could talk...and I had been bugging them for years to hire me. (They said they couldn't til I was 18.) I turned 18 in December of 65..so I started bugging them again. The blizzard began in earnest Sunday-and part-time Mac McGuire (Hank Nicholson) was on the air. From that Sunday until he could be relieved a couple of days later. That made him decide to quit his minimum-wage job at WSAY. He also managed a band from Rush-Henrietta and someone in the band (either Dave Wing or Jim Schulz) told me Hank was quitting. I got the line on the job before most-and it began my (now) nearly 52 year career in the media.
How ironic is that now?
Thanks for sharing that. I weathered the Drought and worked the wildfires as an EMT here in Texas this year, and as much as I hate snow (I spent 2 years in Oswego, NY), that does give me much cooler thoughts lol.
I lived in Oswego NY then and we ended with 102”. I was 10 and it was awesome. My older siblings didn’t think so. They had to shovel
Great archives, thanks.
Worked for Bittker Caterers. Stuck at the Duckman wedding at Temple Brith Kodesh (or was it Temple Beth El), which lasted for three days instead of one. Red Cross and Civil Defense at the time, came in with some medical supplies by snow mobile.
W. Irondequoit Schools were shut down for the week. After college I moved out to the Southwest. No wonder! But I do miss Rochester and come back occasionally.....during the summer.
dam i wasnt even born then but i was raised in rochester,ny clinton ave. i sure remember the ice storm tho
Good stuff 👍
I was 12...parents snowed in at a motel in Roch. For three days I watched the town crews ram into the drifts blocking rout 98 between Elba and Batavia,NY. They used heavy 10 wheelers loaded with salt...eventually the dozers got there to help. I was stuck on a farm with no furnace in the house.
BOL about the story below that buffalo waited almost until summer for the snow to melt.
Imagining MOUNT HOPE WITH SINGLE LANE OPEN for emergency vehicles to share. ( enjoyed that !)
I was 11. I was 44 mi. south in the Springwater area. I thrilled to leap off the roof into the snow, which seemed to leap right back up to catch me.
The highlights were the fantastic things we built.
in websters crossing the huge snowfort held an army of us.
in wayland at gunlocke chairs
Wow!!! Im glad i was not born then!!! However, when i went home for holiday, I could not believe how could it gets @ home!!!
I was 8 (and a half) when that bad-boy hit town. As a little kid, you love that kind of thing! We lived in Pittsford, and I remember a neighbor making grocery runs for a number of us with his Ski-Doo! (snow mobile). Living through that - even as a little kid - has made me very dismissive of people who complain about winter weather. (Ahh! They're all a bunch of sissies!)
I was born January 18th 1966. I was just over 10 days old at the time. My parents have told me stories about how my Father had to walk 3 miles to he store to get formula and food for me and the family.
We really got it in Henrietta too.
I was in 6th grade! I remember the snow being so deep that it covered the fence posts and I coud go NAYWHERE I wanted on the ski doo, no bars (or fences) to hold me back! Oh what a feeling!
I lived out in Byron at the time and I remember we had a snow drift that completely covered our garage but about 30 feet away there was a spot that was almost completely bare -- frozen grass only -- it was weird!
No school for about 10 days and my brother and I had a blast.
I have lived in So Cal for the last 20 years so winter and weather are just fond memories.
Thanks for the video, it made me feel very nostalgic.
NY 237 three mi. south of Clarendon. See my comment:
czcams.com/video/owdEF-2loPg/video.html
we lived on the Tug Hill back then, I was 13, we were house bound, and, yes, it was family time, with fond memories.
Hey! That's funny - I was born on Feb. 17 - and my Mom always cursed me for being born during the blizzard...lol!
Was 16, lived in a housing tract W of Latta & Mt Read...folks ended up w/ party guests for a few days, as drifts were very high. A pregnant gal several doors away, got taken out via toboggan by a volunteer ambulance crew, going thru backyards from the North of us... somehow they succeeded !
We lived on a dead end street, and like many, we had drifts to the top of phone plles most of the way p the street. It was almost a week before there were bulldozers were used to try and clear our street, (Dearcop Drive in Gates NY) and the gouges from the dozers tracks were visible in the pavement for many years after. It was only after repaving that they were gone. The year before it was the great power outage of the Northeast. I remember wondering what was going to happen next!
I was 9 yrs old and I remember this blizzard. Couldn't even get out the front door.
I was part of that experience with the snow storm 'back' then. I walked to my job at St. Ann's Home down Norton Street, then north on Portland Avenue with my LONG 'maxi' wool coat and boots, up to my knees. I walked slow. VERY slow.
As I was approaching the very long driveway that would take me to the nursing home, a snow plow person saw me and I hitched a ride the remainder of the way.
The nuns (dressed in their white habits) proclaimed me as an angel in disguise.
I wuz born in April 1966!! My parents had 10 foot piles out side their Irondequoit home. My mother always said thank god they had a hand operated can opener 'cause they lost power for days.
50 years OLD
Just shown this to my dad, he told me he was 11 when this storm came. Him and his 2 older brothers would walk up and down Culver road in Irondequiot making tons of money to shovel their pathways/driveways for someone his age. They didn't charge elderly people or those with handicap issues, that was a rule my oldest Uncle enforced so that was really sweet of them 😄
I remember that storm very well. Wow
I WAS 8 YESRS OLD WHEN THIS STORM HIT. I MAY NOT REMEMBER THIS ONE BUT THERE A A FWW I DO REMEMBER .
I remember that year I was 6 years old wow
I was 10 years old. And lived all my life in Rochester 66 was the worst I have ever seen
I started the post below: in wayland at gunlocke chairs toboggens were flyin down that hill they kept cleared for sledding.
I also made an underground home. I tunneled into the snow and kept going. I had a couple of small rooms.
My fondest memory is that I discovered how warm it was inside snow and I imagined I was an eskimo.
Our friend tunneled into the road, then he heard snow plows coming. Imagine the fear?
That guy even today can't tell us if its going to rain tomorrow or not.
I was a newly wed back when that storm hit. I lived in an upstairs apartment of a converted single two story house at the time and the snow was up to my second story windows. My husband and I walked down a 4 lane avenue that was filled in on both sides with snow and only had a path down the center. The only things running on the streets were the snow mobiles.
Arrived on the Amtrak from NYC (10 hours late). Couldn't believe my eyes when I got to Rochester.
Hey goody2shoes11,
I was hatched on the 16th of that year at what was then Northside Hospital. We were probably big celebrities in the paper at the same time!
I was living in Pittsford and really enjoyed the time off school
Heh.. This reminds me that I was born in the aftermath of the Blizzard of '96 in Philadelphia. :D
this storm hit 35 years before I was born
I was 8 and recall the Army came in with big ass payloaders to remove the snow.The good old days on Parkdale Terrace-Ten Ward rocks back then now it's a POS.
Only problem with that Blizzard, is all the snow melted and Rochester still exists.
It is a big storm when after several days they have to use a payloader to open your road for traffic to move anywhere.
And YES the Snow banks were really anywhere from 4-7ft high ...
I remember Three sisters Restaurant and who owned it
@shibez Well yes and no. I was homeschooled so we got half a day as my mom put it lol.
i was 5 and in buffalo the snow was till there in may till it melted
at least the weather forecasting was accurate back then. Throw out the SUPER COMPUTER MODELING and go back to the old ways.....it worked!!!!
@shibez Haha that one was bad. I will NEVER forget it because it happened on my birthday.
born in 1966 April 3 months later
@amanda3589 sweet so u got school off for your birthday :D
+4 mill...WOW!!
4 million what?
@clockworktim my grandfather took home movies that I posted on youtube.
I was conceived during that storm
2019 City of Rochester plow truck with snowmelt all City trucks in Rochester New York Rochester New York is a
Scott H. wished he was here lol lol.
poppycock 1:45
Hey Scott head School I was in 1966 in the blister 66 I was 15 and believe it or not I was delivering the Democrat and chronicle newspaper and guess what 50 60 years later I'm back delivering newspapers so Scott had school if you do see this give me a call on the guy from Canada
gay rochestarians
The first guy is Darrell porter I use to work for his brother emitt