Gary

Sanford, Florida

I had just turned nine years old a few days before the blizzard hit (my birthday is February 1st), and was in third grade at Wickford Elementary School in North Kingstown. I remember getting out of school early, and while I was walking toward the school bus the wind was so strong it blew me over right in front of the bus! I was the last kid in line, so I was afraid at first that the bus driver wouldn't see me and [would] run me over! Of course now I know that wouldn't happen, but being nine at the time I was scared to death. School was out the rest of the week.

When I got home, the front door to the house was frozen shut from the wind and snow. I was banging on the door crying, and had to walk through the snow in the yard to the back door to get into the house. My brother was in kindergarten at the time, and he didn't go to school at all, because back then there were morning and afternoon kindergarten classes and he had the afternoon one. After our driveway got plowed out, the snow banks on the side were over three feet high and the pile of snow from plowing was higher than our garage... and didn't entirely melt until May. I remember also the previous year when we had seven inches of snow one day in May.

Now that I live in the Orlando, Florida, area, snow is a thing of the past, but this past winter was the coldest winter ever here with quite a few nights in the 20s, and even some sleet and snow one day at my house. I couldn't believe it when I heard that all-too-familiar sound of sleet hitting the roof that I know all too well from living in New England for the first thirty-seven years of my life. People were saying it was the coldest they have ever seen here and the first time they had ever seen sleet or snow. After all, it had been almost thirty-five years since the last time it happened here. Then I show them about the Blizzard of '78!

Received via email, July 11, 2010.