By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: January 31, 2019 1:17 PM

With state government shut down because of arctic-like temperatures and folks – some of whom probably enjoy ice fishing and snowmobiling – complaining about keeping their thermostats set to 65 for the natural gas emergency, those who are old enough naturally want to compare this enforced hibernation to winter crises past.

And naturally those who can will remember the blizzard of January 1978.

No polar vortex here, this was an honest to God blizzard, arguably the worst in state history. The mid '70s featured a number of ferocious winters (followed by hellfire hot summers) but nothing topped them like the blizzard which struck the central U.S. on January 26 and 27, 1978.

The lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the central U.S. – and the third lowest in U.S. history, not caused by a tropical storm (for all you weather freaks paying attention) – was recorded in Mount Clemens during the storm. Detroit got off easy with slightly less than nine inches of snow. Lansing got close to 20 inches, Traverse City got about 24 inches and Muskegon – thanks to lake effect snow – got 52 inches.

And the cold, lord the cold and wind. Windchill estimates have since been recalibrated, but this reporter's brother, then a student at Case Western University in Cleveland, called to report that windchills were measured at close to -100 off Lake Erie.

A DJ on one of the Lansing stations, this reporter cannot remember which, begged people not to venture outdoors. "It is certain death," he said. No kidding, he did.

State government of course shut down. In the pre-personal computer/cell phone days one had to rely on radio, television and landline phones to communicate and find out if they were coming in or not. Gongwer News Service, which relied on the U.S. Mail, which also wasn't being delivered, had to shut down.

That was okay to this reporter who had come down with a bad case of flu. The only place I wanted to get to was the small grocery across the street from my north Lansing apartment building to get soup. But I couldn't do that because all the doors in and out of the building were frozen and blocked in with snow. It took a full day for the landlord to be able to get someone over to clear the doors so the residents could get out. (As an aside, a year later one apartment in the building was destroyed by fire. In a way, we were lucky it happened when it did because at least people could get out of the building.)

A former Associated Press reporter of my acquaintance, and a veteran of Chicago winters, couldn't see her car in her apartment parking lot so covered was it with snow. She ventured out to Lake Lansing Road and thumbed a ride in a Corvair. "Where are you going?" the driver said. "Downtown," the reporter said. "Cool," the driver said, and they slid along a vacant freeway to the Capitol.

The executive Lincoln could not get then-Governor William Milliken from the governor's residence to the Capitol, so the National Guard sent a half-track to ferry him to the building.

And when the workday was declared over, the AP reporter, having no other way back to her home, piled into the half-track with the rest of the Executive Office staff.

That created a bit of a problem for the state later. While trying to find Communications Director Bob Berg's house the half-track ran over a neighbor's tree. Later that year the Administrative Board recompensed the neighbor for the cost of the tree.

Stay warm everybody and try not to cost the state any money.