"THE snow fell fast and was caught by the wild winds and hurled everywhere. It came with such force into the eyes of the pedestrian as to blind him melting, it would remain frozen fast to the eye, so that it was his constant work to protect his sight. The snow would follow the breath into the lungs and fill them with, water, nearly choking him if not quite doing the work of strangulation.
No, this is not a report of recent conditions in New York, but an eyewitness account of a similar and much more severe event which affected that same city more than 100 years ago. It serves as a timely reminder that, despite our fears of a changing global climate, even the worst of times are rarely without precedent.
The snowstorm that buried the eastern United States from Maine to Maryland under three to four feet of snow in March 1888 was much more devastating than any in this century. For three full days, from 12th to 14th of that month, gale to near hurricane force winds, heavy snow and temperatures several degrees below zero coincided to bring life along the eastern seaboard to a total standstill. Hotels, bars and private homes were jammed with people seeking shelter, and many spent their nights in the city jails, sleeping on cots provided by a considerate police force.
Paradoxically, the blizzard of March 1888 proved to be a bonanza for the New York poor. Any man or boy able to lift a shovel could make at least double the normal working wage, as businessmen paid $2 or more a day to have the snow cleared from their premises. But there was tragedy as well. Four hundred people died, 200 in New York alone some wandered blindly into snow banks and died quietly, while others became hysterical, raging at the wind and pounding the drifting snow in tearful desperation. Thousands more suffered the effects of exposure and amputation of frost bitten limbs.
Variously remembered as "The Great White Hurricane" or Blizzard of "88", the March snowstorms of that year became the stuff of babies born around the time gave their children appropriate names like "Snowflake", "Snowdrop", "Storm" and "Tempest" even "Blizzard" in memory of the event. In subsequent years, veterans formed clubs to meet every year on its anniversary. One of these, "The Blizzard Men of 1888", was still meeting in a New York hotel as late as 1941, and annually presented its perpetual cup for the most interesting personal account of that famous snowstorm.