Weathering the Storm
Colliers Magazine Cover, May 1954
In 1815, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent enough ash into the sky to disrupt weather across the globe for the next year. In New England, 1816 became known as “The Year Without a Summer.” Snow fell throughout June and July. Temperatures swung wildly. Crops and animals died. According to one diarist, the 4th of July saw “ice as thick as window glass” as far south as Pennsylvania. Tens of thousands of people picked up and left; their search for greener pastures in Indiana and Illinois became the first chapter in a larger story of westward expansion.
This week on BackStory, we tackle weather in its strangest and scariest permutations. How have Americans thought about extreme weather through history, and how has the weather shaped our history? What kinds of disaster responses have been useful and which ones have been, well, disastrous? And how much of a natural disaster can we really blame on nature?
Please help us shape this show! Ever moved from one region to another to escape the threat of hurricanes or earthquakes? What do you think we learned (or didn’t learn) from Katrina? How does climate change fit into the picture? And why are disaster movies so compulsively watchable? Share your stories, questions, and ideas below!
The Blizzard of 1978 was the biggest storm in my experience. We actually had two big blizzards that winter in the Boston area: one on January 20 which resulted in about two and a half feet of snow, and the big one on Feb 6-7. In Burlington MA, where I lived, we had four feet of snow with drifts as high as ten feet. We lived on a cul-de-sac, and the snow plows created a mountain of snow in front of our house that had to be 15 feet high. We couldn’t see the street from our living room window for several weeks.
But besides the snow, there was wind (our neighbor’s toolshed was ripped off its foundation), downed power lines and very high tides that played havoc with coastal towns and cities. The roads in Massachusetts were closed for a week. 29 people died in Massachusetts, 54 in New England. Deaths came from asphyxiation by carbon monoxide while trapped in snowbound cars, here attacks while shoveling snow, electrocution from downed power lines, etc. One little bot got lost in the snow while shoveling his grandmother’s driveway while the storm was still raging. His body was discovered on the grandmother’s front lawn when the snow melted in the spring.
The Blizzard of 1978 has since been the benchmark against I have measured all winter storms.
QuoteAlso, I think that many people are moving to North Carolina from colder regions. Did weather contribute to this migration? Do colder regions tend to be more liberal than warmer regions? North Carolina just voted for Amendment 1 and have “right to work laws” and other pro-business practices. I’m wondering if climate/historical factors contributed to this cultural divide between the north and south?
QuoteThe last comment, asking about a possible link between climate and politics brings up my big question: Why is it that many conservatives just do not accept scientific evidence that clearly points to global warming? How does a political view shape the ability to take in new information? Are there psychological explanations that are grounded in research, or just conjecture?
QuoteI grew up in Minnesota and moved to the DC area in my 20s. A few years ago my husband (who is from the New York area) moved to northern Maryland (in part) to be in an area that got more snow. We get about the right amount enough to enjoy but not a burden.
Climate certainly had an effect on the distribution of slavery. The lack of year round work agricultural work was one of the reasons slavery was unprofitable in Northern States.
QuoteI’m reminded of two anecdotes from 1989 when I was the sole full-time newsman at weekly newspaper in northeast Florida. (For you youngsters, a “newspaper” was something like a printout of a website, only on larger, cheaper paper.) My wife and I had just married, and my in-laws came to see us and escape a high-altitude Arizona winter — only to be caught in a Florida blizzard that stranded them in their motel room. Meanwhile interstate I-95 was closed at our exit, due to ice, which left hundreds of Orlando-bound travelers stranded. One family from Long Island ended up bunking with us, on the floor of our modest rented outbuilding, under the Christmas tree. They’d driven from Nassau County only to end up stranded in another Nassau County, a fact that heightened the surrealism for them.
We thought we had evaded severe weather that year. In September, Hurricane Hugo was supposed to make landfall on our bit of coast, only to veer northward at the last moment and plow into Charleston. The response from our rural county, as well as nearby Jacksonville, was unforgettable. I interviewed many people who dropped everything to take part in the relief effort. I was struck by the sense of duty many of them felt, as if the plight of coastal South Carolina had become identical with our own. After all, as I was told repeatedly, “it could have been us.”
As a recent migrant to the coast, I also quickly shed my indifference to news reports of hurricane tracks. Being “in range” has a way of concentrating one’s attention on meteorology.
QuoteSnow did not fall “throughout June and July”,- rather, snow fell IN June and July.
QuoteSnow fell in both months in some places, but most days were without snow.
Bouton’s 1856 “The History of Concord…” mentions frosts in those months, but
not snow. Coffin’s “The History of Boscawen and Webster, from 1733 to 1878″ (p.184-5)
quotes contemporaries: “On the 6th of June the day of general election the snow fell
several inches deep…and on the following day snow fell & frost continued. Also July 9th
a deep & deadly frost…” (Deacon Enoch Little, Sr.’s Day-book: “June. Very cold. The
6th, 7th, & 8th it snowed…and in the north part of the state it was a foot deep.”)
Neither Rev. Price or Deacon Little record snow in July.
I remember being told when I was a child on vacation that the flimsy looking houses in Florida were because hurricanes come through and tear them up every few years. As I’ve grown older I’ve wondered, “how frequent are destructive coastal storms and haven’t there been periods of more frequent destructive hurricanes, or was that my folks’ perception.” Today we see so much development along our coasts and are we living on borrowed time. I live in the beautiful Tennessee Valley and we are told of historic flooding that has been our history but the TVA tamed this once wild river. Up here we believe we have “weathered the storm”….. true?
Lamar Gibson
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