By Jack Houvouras
HQ 123 | AUTUMN 2023
This edition of the magazine includes an article entitled “Huntington’s 20 Biggest News Stories of All Time.” We thought it might be interesting to look back at some of the most defining moments — both good and bad — in our city’s history. To that end, we polled our readers and consulted with local historian Jim Casto to arrive at our final selections. You can read the article on page 66.
However, there is one news story that I was intimately involved with that didn’t make the list, but nonetheless is deserving as an honorable mention — The Blizzard of 1977. Some refer to it as “The Rockefeller Blizzard,” and others call it “The Blizzard that Never Was.” Either way, it is a farcical tale worth remembering.
Allow me to set the scene for that historic event. The date was Thursday, Jan. 27, 1977, and I was a sixth-grade student at Meadows Elementary in the classroom of Mrs. Helen Bardall. Even for 1977, Mrs. Bardall was an old-school teacher. She wore her dark hair pulled back tightly in a bun and donned cat-eye glasses with narrow lenses and thick black frames. She was a sturdy woman who, despite being quite pleasant, always maintained a stern demeanor.
Shortly before noon that morning, Mrs. Bardall entered our classroom and informed us that a blizzard was approaching Huntington. What’s more, the governor had declared a State of Emergency. She instructed all of us to remain at our desks and begin praying. She then exited the room and shut the door. Seconds later I heard a woman scream, “We’re all going to die!” I don’t know if it was Mrs. Bardall or one of the other teachers in the hallway who uttered those hysterical (in more ways than one) words, but they have echoed in my mind for 46 years.
Meanwhile, my mother was at the Big Bear grocery store just down the street where people began frantically sweeping loaves of bread off the shelves into their shopping carts. She had not heard the news of the approaching blizzard and was obviously quite perplexed.
My father was at work when the news broke and tried calling my school, but the phone lines were jammed. He eventually got through and told the principal that I was to walk home.
“Are you crazy?” the principal asked. “There’s a blizzard approaching!”
“It’s not even snowing yet,” my dad replied. “I don’t think my son will perish in the five minutes it takes to walk home.”
As a result, Mrs. Bardall reentered our classroom and announced that my father had called, and that I was to walk home immediately. As I rose from my desk, many of my classmates began extending their arms to me while begging me to call their parents. Some of them handed me notes of paper with phone numbers jotted down; others just looked to me in sheer panic. I was both overwhelmed and bewildered in that surreal moment and made a hasty retreat for the exit.
I walked home at a brisk pace; and as I approached our house on South Park Drive, I saw our black Labrador Sam sitting in the road watching me. I had heard that animals could often sense impending storms and would behave strangely in such circumstances. When Sam greeted me warmly and started wagging his tail, I knew immediately that nothing bad would happen.
That evening I watched the 6 o’clock news as a local reporter stood in the empty streets of Huntington and announced that 1 inch of snow had fallen. Nothing more fell after that. The wind blew a little harder that night, but that was the extent of the killer blizzard of 1977.
