Nov. 30 snow caught city plowless
Hints of snow in the forecast for this weekend seem like echoes of another autumn 40 years ago when an unexpected snow brought Baltimore to a stop.
It was Nov. 30, 1967. The weather service forecast called for "cloudy, with some snow this morning, becoming mixed with sleet, then changing to rain." It was expectated that warmer air would move in after the snowy start, turn everything to rain and clear the streets. Sounds like Sunday's forecast.
Anyway, public works officials heard the part about the changeover to rain, and not so much the part about the snow. So, when the cold air persisted and the warm air stayed away, things began to slide downhill, so to speak.
The snow began in the early morning, according to the account the next day in The Sun. As much as 10 inches accumulated. After scratching their heads for a few hours, the DPW sent out 100 trucks to spread salt. But because they hadn't yet equipped the fleet with plows, they were unable to cope with the mounting accumulations. It would be 6 p.m. before they had the plows on.
Meanwhile, traffic bogged down. Businesses, factories, courts, schools closed down early, adding to the crush. The Baltimore Transit Company kept its buses running. But they, too, became stuck in the snow and traffic. Delays of an hour were common. School buses loaded with kids got stuck, and one with 25 children on board skidded into a ditch in Arnold. No one was hurt. On U.S. 1 in Elkridge, 40 trucks jack-knifed or skidded into the biggest snarl reported by State Police that day.
Baltimore wasn't alone. The snowstorm swept from Indiana eastward, affecting the East Coast from Virginia northward to New York.
The snow set a new record for the date at BWI - 8.4 inches, just a tenth of an inch shy of the month's record at the time. The Nov. 30 record still stands. Some locations north and west of the city saw more.
Twenty cars were involved in a wreck on the JFX, jamming things up for thousands more. BWI closed down for 11 hours due to slick runways. Shipping from the harbor was slowed as 9 ships elected to stay in port to wait out the storm.
Washington received 11 inches. And as temperatures sank into the 20s that night, ice coated the roads.
The weather service said the storm had developed twin centers, one over the Appalachians, and a secondary low off the Virginia coast. Sounds almost exactly like what AccuWeather's Henry "Madman" Margusity has been predicting for Sunday's storm.
Reading these old clips is a hoot, as well as a sober reminder of how little things have changed. There are ads, pleading for nurses at Sinai Hospital, with the lure of earning "up to $10,000 per annum;" or offering two weeks in London, including jet round trip, hotel, "8 smash shows" and a daily "large English breakfast" - all for just $300.
And there's the other news, of police riding city buses to put down a rash of holdups, and of a family in Glenisle, Anne Arundel County, notified that their son, 20, was killed by a booby trap in Vietnam after only a month in country.
