The Blizzard of 1996
Happy New Year! Here we are celebrating a new year and already wishing for warmer weather. One positive for January is that each day is a little longer. From January first to January 31st, we gain approximately one hour of daylight. That’s a good thing.
Last year I shared the names of full moons from different Indian tribes. This year we will stroll down memory lane with different advertising jingles. We will start off with an easy one, just finish the sentence… Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz (and what comes next)? I’ll tell you next month.
This month I will start out with a weather story. Anyone over 35 years old will probably remember this storm. It started January 6th, 1996, and became one of the deepest snows that was recorded. Of course, like all weather events it all depends on where you live as to the amount of snow you receive. Like most of our “big ones” it came up from the south in the Gulf Coast area and moved up through the Carolinas then straight up through Virginia, Pennsylvania and on to the Northeast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for short, now these people are the supposedly “weather experts” and they ranked this storm number two of all time for our area, only beat out by the March of 1993 storm which I wrote about earlier. These ratings depend on a number of factors including but not limited to the amount of snow, number of people affected, land area affected, schools affected, etc. If I remember correctly, in the Fulks Run, Bergton area we had between 24 to 28 inches. (DE) Dale Enterprise in Harrisonburg which is official gave a two-day total snowfall of 30 inches. And to make it worse, high winds caused terrible drifts. Dale Enterprise reported it as drifting snow with blizzard conditions. There was one family in Mathias WV that reported snow accumulation of over four feet, but most received between 24 and 27 inches. Drifts were reported as high as ten foot deep in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. Nationally there were reports of 11 lives lost and many farms reported roofs collapsing such as poultry houses and barns.
Now after this weather event we gave a sigh of relief. We made it through the blizzard and clean up started. A few days later another storm was predicted to bring an additional four to eight inches of snow, but there was not a mad rush to the stores for milk, bread, and eggs. The community felt that’s nothing. We made it through the blizzard. We could make it through anything, but little did we know the worst was yet to come.
For the next ten days high temperatures ranged from the low 20’s to the mid 40’s, lows ranged from the single digits to the high teens, so not much snow had melted. Now round two was about to begin. Official reports gauged that the snowpack moisture was from three inches to five- and one-half inches depending on your location. Now for mother nature’s next punch, on January 18th the high temperature was 50 degrees, and then on January 19th the trouble started with a high temperature of 59 degrees and a low of 41 this was accompanied with thunderstorms and extremely warm high winds. Dale Enterprise reported 1.62 inches of rain on top of snowpack that was on the ground, but some areas received as much as four inches of rain. Personally, I remember that night I was awaken by the strong winds, I tried tuning into the radio, but all locals’ channels were switched to syndicated networks which was not local. The next morning, I looked out the door and could not believe my eyes. When I went to bed my hay field had approx. 16 inches of snowpack on the ground. That morning I saw only bare green ground. I knew then we were in trouble.
I called my co-worker in New Market to check about road conditions. He said, “Forget it! No one is getting in, and no one is getting out of Quicksburg.” So much for the mail must go through. The high water and flooding closed many roads. And in Broadway, Main street, flooded from Linville Creek, had to be evacuated because a fuel oil tank and two propane tanks broke loose and started floating down the street. This was a serious event. But always keep in mind, it could always be worse. I’ll share that worst event with you in February.
Now for my closing story. This came to me from a dear friend. It was told to him by Forest “Speck “Fulk who passed away on November 8th, 2022, at the age of 104 years old. Yes, he had a lot of stories to tell. It was about this time of year and Oliver Scudders, Ed Fulk, and Joe Fawley were going grouse hunting in the Dry River area. To put a time frame on this hunt, it would fall around the 1920’s. Oliver was born in1881 and had served in WWI and for him, wherever they went, they walked. They were headed for a cabin located in what is called the Gate. It was built by Joe “Nat” Fulk, a friend and relative of the men, built on property he thought he owned, but later the National Forest claimed it was built on their land and was torn down. On their way up Dry River, it started to snow, and the farther they went the heavier the snow. Upon arriving at the cabin, they had given up on the idea of hunting, so they decided to spend the night and head for home the next morning. They built a big fire and placed their boots close by to hopefully dry them out during the night. Come next morning the three men arose and started dressing for their walk back home. Only Oliver had a BIG problem. When setting his brand-new wet, leather boots by the fire they were accidentally moved too close and did not only dry out but shrank them down about two sizes. What to do now? They looked around and finally found some burlap sacks and some strings. So, his buddies started wrapping these burlaps sacks around his feet and tied strings around the sacks to hold them on. Toward home they started, burlap sacks and all, and they did arrive safely.
At that time there were two grocery stores at the start of Dry River Road. A little after they arrived a traveler came into the store with astonishment, “I seen something I never seen before”.
“What’s that?” the storekeeper asked.
“I just came off Dry River, and I tracked two men in the snow, and they were following the biggest bear track I have ever seen in my life!”
In reality, he was following Ed and Joe and Oliver Scudder in his “burlap sack bundle boots”.
Believe it or not
Until Next Time
Ronnie
