Saturday, March 16, 2019

VIDEO WEEKEND - BLIZZARD OF 1888


Dr. Izzy Frome:
This is nothing. 
The great white out of 1888, 
they had to shut down Maine. 
Literally closed it like it was a Denny's. 
Safety first. 
Well, 400 people still died that day.  
But we will be fine.
'New Amsterdam'

From Wikipedia:
The Great Blizzard of 1888 or Great Blizzard of '88 (March 11 – March 14, 1888) was one of the most severe recorded blizzards in the history of the United States of America. The storm, referred to as the Great White Hurricane, paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada.  Snowfalls of 10 to 58 inches (25 to 147 cm) fell in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) produced snow drifts in excess of 50 feet (15 m). Railroads were shut down, and people were confined to their houses for up to a week.  Railway and telegraph lines were disabled, and this provided the impetus to move these pieces of infrastructure underground. Emergency services were also affected.  
For more on the storm, click here.

Had the '88 blizzard happened in the West, there would have been plenty of TV Westerns which would have addressed it in their fictional plotlines.  As it is, many of them did have plot lines dealing with blizzard conditions of their own, but I don't think any of them had any connection to the overall 1888 storm.  (Most TV Westerns were set in the 1870s.)

But there wasn't much call for TV "Easterns" set in 1888 New England.  So that mention of the blizzard in the March 12, 2019 episode of 'New Amsterdam' may be the only acknowledgement of it happening in the Television Universe. 

But I'm only one guy.  Can't check out all of the archives.  It's dark down there!

At any rate, here are some documentaries about the Blizzard of 1888, kicking off with a first-person account by someone from my new/old hometown.....







BCnU! 



 

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