Historic Moment: Snow days and the blizzard of 1966
By Jorge Batlle
Village Historian
We all talk about “the good old days” but, I doubt that they are talking about good old winters. My family moved here in late fall of 1962 from Manhasset, Long Island, which is about 15 miles from New York City. We were not accustomed to Central New York snows. Our first encounter was a six inch snow. My brothers and sisters, still in school, thought, oh boy, the school will be closed for a couple of days. Back on Long Island this would have closed schools for a few days while snow removal was accomplished by little plows attached to the front of municipal garbage trucks. After school I took them down to the highway department garage and showed them why they went to school, two huge Walter Snow Fighter snow plows.
Snow back in those good old days was a big deal. The storms dumped massive accumulations on Skaneateles. At the turn of the century electric trolleys ran from Syracuse, down Genesee Street over Franklin Street to Auburn. They kept the rails clear with a massive V plow.
My wife, who then lived up in Shepard Settlement, and attended Marcellus school, remembers huge snow falls. She recalls a plow that was working Stump Road having the snow rolling over the cab’s roof of the plow. The managed to get one narrow trail opened up. The Marcellus school bus that she was on left red and green paint on the tall snow banks. Marcellus school buses were painted the school’s colors of red and green.
My first serious encounter with Central New York snow was the infamous blizzard of 1966. I was a firefighter in Syracuse and also worked locally here at the Dell Funeral Home, located at 77 E. Genesee St., the former Thayer House.
On Jan. 20, 1966 it was snowing quite hard. Dell had a funeral service for Earl Milford scheduled. It was not cancelled. I trudged through knee deep snow to get the hearse out of the back of Grady Motors garage (now where the present fire station is located). The big heavy Cadillac made its own path back to the funeral home. The body was then taken up to Lakeview Cemetery and stored in the vault for a spring burial.
I was scheduled for the night shift in Syracuse. So, I departed and headed to the city. My big Pontiac plowed through the deep snow, only slowing down for stop signs .I made it to my station.
Monday, Jan. 31 the storm continued. All off duty Syracuse firefighters were ordered to go to the nearest fire station. All city roads were impassable. To accommodate the extra arriving firefighters, the beds in the dormitory had the mattresses taken off the box springs and placed on the floor. We placed firefighting tools and hoses on toboggans, as we could not get the pumper out of the station.
Tuesday afternoon the storm subsided. Syracuse was buried under 43 inches of snow. Oswego received over 100 inches. Syracuse snow plows were called belly plows. The plow blade was suspended from the frame of the slat spreader trucks just ahead of the rear wheels. This snow was too much for them to handle. Wednesday, a caravan of out of town plows descended on the city. A huge pusher plow, so tall that the driver could look into the second floor of the fire station, began clearing the streets. My shift was sent home Wednesday afternoon. During the storm calls for the fire department dropped to zero. As soon as the roads opened up, the fire department calls were back to usual levels.
Back in Skaneateles, Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 2, mail was finally available but only at the post office. Bread and milk and other staples were running low at grocery stores. The fire department used their six wheel drive “duck” plowing through drifts on Onondaga Road, to bring back milk from Pine Grove Dairy. Snow banks and drifts were up to 20 feet high. Red flags were tied to car antennas so they might be seen at intersections. The schools did not reopen until the following Monday.
Back then, they were called weathermen. Today they are called meteorologists. We now have Doppler radar, weather apps on television screen crawls. However, some of us still get spooked anytime these forecasters go “Into Weather Alert,” and run to the store to stock up on bread and milk. Today we still pile the snow into mountains and hope never to have another blizzard of 1966.
