This and That

By Helen Kaverman, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Monday, January 21, 2008 (7 months, 1 week ago)
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Part 2
The Blizzard of ‘78 paralyzed the Tri-County area and most of northwestern Ohio. The snow drifts were 15 to 18 feet deep in many areas. Some people lost power as early as 4 a.m. on Thursday morning, the first day of the big storm.
The storm paralyzed most of Ohio, enabling Governor James Rhodes to activate the Ohio National Guard on Thursday morning. By Jan. 28, there were 5,005 men and women of the Ohio National Guard on duty in the state. According to Schmidlin & Schmidlin, in “Thunder in the Heartland,” there were 175,000 homes in Ohio without power on Thursday and about 100,000 homes still without power on Friday night.
Interstate 75 was closed for three days. Motorists stranded on I-75 near Findlay broke into a truck weigh station for shelter. The entire length of the Ohio Turnpike was closed for the first time in history. The turnpike was reopened east of Elyria Friday afternoon but remained closed in northwestern Ohio until Saturday.
One State Trooper was stranded all day Thursday at Conrad’s Truck Stop on US 30 West of Delphos. He was unable to get to his home just a few miles from the truck stop.
A spokesman for the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Deptartment said they had a couple snow plow drivers lost in the storm on Thursday. Mike Pollock was found near US 30 after he was stranded for 12 hours. Another snow plow operator was not located until 9:30 p.m. Thursday near Rt. 224. Pollock was rescued by a farmer and taken to the farmer’s home, where he was suffering from frostbite. The other driver was “all right” and had taken refuge in a farm house near State Route 224.
Mayor Arthur Eversole of Middle Point said emergency rescue had come to a standstill because snowmobilers could not see due to the poor visibility and would risk becoming lost.
Most of the area came to a standstill but two of my friends, Joan Pimpas and Peggy Geise, both managed to get to work somehow … both were in the food service business. Peggy spent several hours at the Wheel Inn until Denny Kill took her home around 9 p.m. She recalled now truckers were lined up all the way down 5th Street, which was Rt. 30 at that time.
Joan said her husband, Gus, got her to work at The Line-Up at 5 or 6 a.m. on Thursday and she was “struck” there all day until 11 p.m. She prepared lots of sandwiches which the police took to people who needed food. She had no other customers and it was a mighty long day until she was taken home that night.
Many people in the outlying areas were without power or telephone service. Nancy Brenneman, of Ridge Road said her family had to resort to breaking up furniture to burn in the fireplace. The family huddled near the fireplace to keep warm. Nancy said her husband was finally able to reach the barn on Friday morning to feed the animals.
Janis Owens, of rural Venedocia, said she and her two children huddled in one bed with hats on their heads to try to keep the heat in their bodies. She said when they went to sleep at night she wondered if they would awake in the morning.
A spokesman for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Deptartment said 30 to 50 percent of the people in the county were without electric power on Friday. On Thursday as high as 70 percent of the county  residents  were  out  of power.
Pangles Master Market was reportedly open all day Friday. Customers came via snowmobiles, trucks or on foot. He said two persons were managing the store and two were working in the meat department. Meyers IGA said the store would be open until 5 p.m. on Friday. According to Arnold Scott of Scott’s Grocery they would be open until 4 p.m. on Friday.
Harvey Chiles of the Ohio Power said the lineman couldn’t stand to be outside the trucks very long because of the chill factor. Philip Gressel reported that his trucks would not get moving until Monday. He had trucks stranded in Wapakoneta and St. Marys, one in Cleveland, one in Kentucky and two in Pennsylvania.
Mary Alice Davey said they had 11 or 12 men staying overnight at their home on State Route 309 for several nights. They were mostly ODOT employees. They brought in one old man who was soaking wet so they had to wrap him in blankets and put him near the fireplace to thaw out. A little Brandy helped. They had enough pillows and blankets to have guys sleeping on the floor of every room in the house. Someone brought them eggs on a snowmobile and she had made a big kettle of vegetable soup to feed everyone. She said they had power but their TV antenna had blown down so there was no TV watching. However, they did have a radio and could play cards and Monopoly.
Watch for more Blizzard stories in next Saturday’s edition of the Delphos Herald and in This & That. That will be the anniversary of that big day 30 years ago.

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