Last week was the 49th anniversary of the “Blizzard of ’77,” a storm that is indelibly imprinted on the memories of those of us who experienced it. It was also a weather event that unfortunately killed 23 people across Western New York.

It created huge snow drifts that blocked roads and engulfed houses and with subzero temperatures that saw Buffalo Fire Department pumpers fighting fires fueled by hurricane force winds frozen in place.

At the time I was the assistant manager of the Brand Names Catalog showroom at the intersection of Union and Walden in Cheektowaga. Normally I would have worked the 12:30 to 9 p.m. shift on this day but because there was a managers meeting that morning I was opening the store.

Friday, Jan. 28 dawned cold and gray. Temperatures had been below freezing since just before Christmas. The temperature that morning was the warmest in many days, having risen from near zero when I came home from work the previous evening to the mid 20s that morning. I suppose that for many of us during this frigid and snowy winter morning temperatures in the 20s were like a heat wave. Little did anyone suspect that by early afternoon temperatures would sink to below zero.

As I drove to work that morning I was listening to Clint Buehlman on WBEN. While Clint would retire from fulltime broadcasting the following year, in 1977 he was still the “king” of morning radio in Buffalo and where listeners went for school closings, and the morning weather. Clint was supported in his weather forecasts by the Weather Bureau and his trusty “Arther Mometer” for the current temperature.

As I entered the Youngmann Expressway, Buehlman announced that the Buffalo Weather Bureau had issued a Blizzard Warning for Western New York for late morning. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the warning because of the horrible winter weather we had endured since late November. Would I be surprised!

November had been the coldest November in nearly 100 years with an average temperature of 34.1°F or about 11°F below normal. Buffalo also recorded 31.3 inches of snow in November with heavy lake-effect squalls beginning early, including a record 12.3 inches on November 5. On top of that the water temperature of Lake Erie was the coldest ever recorded in November.

In December the weather only grew worse. The average temperature for December averaged only 22.0°F again, roughly 11°F below normal making it the coldest December on record with total snowfall for the month reaching 60.7 inches. Due to the continued bitter cold, Lake Erie froze over by December 14, the earliest date on record. This was a critical factor in the blizzard story because it allowed several feet of light, powdery snow to pile up on the ice rather than melting into the water. 

Records indicate that it snowed nearly every day from just after Christmas until the blizzard began on January 28. For 34 straight days leading up to the storm, temperatures averaged 13.8°F and never rose above freezing. By the morning of the storm, Buffalo had already received roughly 150 inches of snow for the season — more than it usually gets in an entire year.

Arriving at work I prepared to open the store. The front of the store faced Union Road, where Friday morning traffic flowed smoothly under low gray clouds. After the store opened I spent the next hour or so working in the warehouse while making occasional visits to the showroom. Sometime after 11 a.m.I entered the showroom. The sight I beheld was like a scene from the Polar adventure movie “Scott of Antarctica.” Looking out at where Union Road should have been there was a wall of white.

Gusts of wind rattled the plate glass windows at the front of the showroom and one of the doors in the vestibule was swinging in the wind. I locked it and had a sign placed informing customers to use the other door. That wasn’t really necessary because the only customers we had after this were two women and a baby whose car had broken down on Union Road. They waited out the blizzard with us until the next morning.

Sometime around noon it was decided, because of the high winds that made our entrance doors blow open along with a total absence of customers, to close the store. Shortly thereafter the company general manager called and gave orders to close. No one had the heart to tell him we had already closed.

Then management and staff made our way through the storm to the restaurant next door and ate lunch and spent the day in the bar with other refugees from the storm. That evening our crew all had dinner on Brand Names and then after returning to the store we all hunkered down in sleeping bags.

The next morning we woke up to bright sun and subzero temperatures. Taking advantage of the break in the weather our employees began making their way home. The manager and I were the last to leave as we waited with the two women and the baby for their ride. With them safely on their way we headed for our homes.

My drive home took a long circuitous route through Cheektowaga and Amherst streets because so many were blocked by huge drifts. I finally made it home and seldom was there a happier homecoming.

One final note: the Blizzard of 1977 was a “ground blizzard.” The storm dropped only 12 inches of new snow, and what blew into Buffalo were the several feet of light and fluffy snow that had accumulated on the lake ice over the previous month and a half.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com