On Jan. 26, 1978, a blizzard blanketed Northwest Ohio, dumping more than a foot of snow on the region,
killing six in Wood County, paralyzing plows and stranding people for days.
If a storm of this proportion raged again, today’s technology would make the before and after very
different, local officials said.
Before a blizzard, communication would be better and earlier. Roads would be pre-treated with a brine
solution, melting ice. Larger plows could move snow faster. And a team of emergency officials would be
in place, ready to serve.
"Communication would be a lot different," said Ryan Wichman, WTOL-TV meteorologist and Bowling
Green High School graduate.
"Nowadays with social media, push alerts … weather apps, text messaging, you can reach a lot of
people.
"Say we were looking down the barrel of this storm and I said the blizzard was coming tomorrow. I
can reach tens of thousands of people with a click of a mouse."
Plows are better equipped to blast through a blizzard, said Brad Gilbert, director of the Wood County
Emergency Management Agency.
"I don’t think it would be quite as paralyzing, based on the fact that we have better equipment
now," he said. "Snowplows are bigger, have more horsepower. I think physically trying to move
snow and get things going again would be easier."
Rebecca Deangelo, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation District 2, said larger plows
would handle the snow better and improved chemicals could treat the ice that formed before the snow
fell.
"Over the last 40 years, the equipment we use has changed drastically," she said.
A single-axle truck with a front plow was the main snow-fighting tool in 1978, Deangelo said.
Now, most of the trucks are double axles with front plows, belly plows with scoops under the truck that
are good for digging into hard-packed snow, and wing plows, which have an extra attachment that can drop
into the adjoining lane.
Brine, a saltwater solution, is applied to roads before a storm.
"It’s a good tool because it sticks to the road," Deangelo said. "In ’78 brine wasn’t
really around yet. ODOT started using the liquid deicers in minor capacity in the late ’80s."
The treatments have evolved from the liquid deicer to the brine.
"We have seen pretty great results with it. It’s definitely a good tool to use pre-storm," she
said.
Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said today there are a lot more people in the business of clearing
snow.
"What I think would be a significant difference today is there are so many more vehicles that are
four-wheel drive," he said.
"The other big difference is communication. I remember our phones did not work well. It was almost
like a party line," said Wasylyshyn, who was a junior in high school, living in Rossford during the
1978 blizzard.
The one factor that couldn’t be controlled — and could trump new technology and big plows — is the
wind.
"It’s really not that we had a lot of snow. A foot is a lot, but we had those incredibly strong
winds," Gilbert said. "It was the almost hurricane-like winds that created all the
problems."
The 70-80 mph winds in the ’78 blizzard blasted snow into 15-foot drifts that swallowed cars and covered
the first floor of many buildings.
"With those type of storms, it’s really the wind issue," Gilbert said. "Even equipment
today would have to pull over for a bit."
Those winds could be terribly damaging to farm buildings today, said Alan Sundermeier, county extension
director, extension educator, agriculture and natural resources.
"We have a lot of grain and storage, so you worry about any snow totals and damage to roofs and
storage bins," he said.
It’s doubtful that modern pole buildings would be able to withstand the winds better than old timber
frame barns.
In 1978, it was estimated that $586,700 in livestock was lost in Wood County because of the blizzard.
Today, most livestock is housed differently, Sundermeier said.
"Most of our livestock would be in a confinement barn, with larger concentration in those
barns," he said.
The animals could not go very long at all without ventilation, water or feed, he said, adding that
generators would be a must on those farms.
"The trouble might be delivery of feed, if they have enough feed on site," Sundermeier said.
If a blizzard struck again, there may not be a newspaper to read about the breaking events, but there
would be news, said Victoria Dugger, editor of the Sentinel-Tribune.
"The technology we use today to put the newspaper and our website together could be a big help if we
ever have an epic weather event like the blizzard of 1978. Theoretically, reporters and photographers
could be out in the field and then return to their homes and file stories and photos," she said.
The Sentinel-Tribune — for the first time in its then-110-year history — wasn’t published for three
days during the blizzard.
Dugger said it would be tough for drivers to deliver a paper through a foot of blowing snow.
"If the roads are bad, I could also lay out the entire paper from my laptop. The website can be
continually updated from any location. The pages are routinely electronically transmitted to Findlay,
where the paper is printed. All of these things could take place, in a perfect world. But, this is
assuming that the power doesn’t go out," she said.
"If the roads are too bad to haul papers from Findlay, we’d need to wait to deliver print editions
and who knows, readers might end up with three or four days’ worth of papers all at once by the time the
weather clears. No matter what, though, as long as we have electricity somewhere in the county,
Sentinel-Tribune employees will gather the goings on and transmit them on every platform possible."
While technology would be a difference-maker in a storm today, it could also be a hindrance. Society
depends so much on its devices, that if power went out, it could be crippling.
"We rely on electronics so much more, we’re not as used to the old-fashioned way of communication
with each other," Gilbert said. "Electricity always a concern because our national grid across
the country is aging."
Wasylyshyn said more homes have generators now, which would help.
"On the negative side, I think our society’s changed and we don’t know our neighbors as well,"
the sheriff added.
But there’s no denying that technology has improved forecasting by leaps and bounds, Wichman said.
In the 1970s, a satellite would be put into space and take a snapshot that was used to predict the
weather.
"It was helpful and revolutionary at time," Wichman said, but nothing like what is used now.
Today, helium balloons with weather instruments attached to them are launched daily. The data they
collect is thrown into weather models which could predict a storm of this magnitude six or seven days
before it hit. Three days before a storm, meteorologists would know almost exact snowfalls and
temperatures, Wichman said.
Before the blizzard hit on Jan. 26, 1978, there was warning, he said.
"It was an accurate prediction, in that there was at least a few days of notice," Wichman said.
"But it was the evening of the storm, that forecasters realized the gravity."
Gilbert said with advanced notice, a team of leaders can be assembled to handle a crisis now. In 1978,
the EMA was in its infancy, he said.
The liaisons would represent fire, EMS, law enforcement, the county engineer, public utilities and the
American Red Cross, he said. They would decide what resources are needed and how to distribute them.
"We would definitely be activating that county emergency center, trying to coordinate county
wide," Gilbert said.
Every four years, this group does a drill for an emergency, Gilbert said, with the last one held in
March. They also unplug, training with radios, not cell phones.
"There’s still a good chance cell phone use would be available," he said of a blizzard.
"But when we do emergency planning, we don’t rely on cell phone use."
The lessons learned from the 1978 blizzard should be taken to heart, Wichman said. We will see another
epic storm in our lifetime, he said.
"I have to say yes. One, it’s been 40 years so you think something would potentially happen
again," Wichman said. "If it happened once, it could happen again."
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