The Blizzard of ’93 was raging through Ashvegas and the surrounding mountains on this date 14 years ago, and we still remember it as if it were yesterday. The bitter, bitter cold. The eerie, howling wind. Snow drifts. Real snow drifts. A feeling of utter isolation and not a little desolation.
We most remember getting out and walking down Patton Avenue and onto the Smoky Park Bridge. We walked smack down the middle of the bridge – one of the busiest pieces of asphalt in WNC – and never saw a single vehicle.
We also remember how great people were – neighbors helping neighbors pull through. Just amazing.
Did you survive the Blizzard of ’93? Where were you, and what do you remember most?
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I was living in southeastern North Carolina where we got maybe one flurry a year. It was the first time I had ever seen real snow. The local lake actually froze near the shores, and you could walk on it. None of us flatlanders knew how to handle it.
I had just moved to town a few months earlier, and I spent the entire blizzard in a decrepit (but astonishingly cheap) house on the tail end of Flint St. No electricity. No heat, save for the gas oven in a kitchen with an exposed floor of yellowed Asheville Citizen-Times issues from the ’60s and rotting tar paper. My family and I ate instant noodles the entire time. And yet, compared to spending another winter in Greenville, SC, it was grand.
I was working at a newspaper in northern New York, we were used to snow, but this was a big one. We got about 4 feet and the drifts were huge.Our one photographer was on vacation in southeast Texas. I had done a littl work in the dark room so I was tabbed to print and develop the photos we needed for a doubletruck photo spread. I stayed up all night Sunday to Monday trying to figure out how to make the snow show up with with just a few dots to give it some depth. I think I went through a box and a half of paper. In the end I was pretty good in the darkroom with black and white prints – a skil that was to become totally worthless in less than 5 years.
We had more than 3 feet of snow at our farm in McDowell county, with no power for 10 whole days… we carried water to our pregnant polo horses as our well did not work because of the power loss. Slept in the den in front of the fireplace and under sleeping bags and had a palatial breakfast every morning courtesy of a propane camp stove my father had. Both of my parents lived through the depression so this was sort of like "living history" for me to be with them…
The only thing: we went to bed at dark every night because there was nothing to do. And I, a die-hard anti-television type, watched junk tv for three whole days once the power came back on!
My brother and his gf thought it would be fun to walk about a mile over to our house, and build a snowman.They arrived, ice covered and frozen. We were all stranded for 3 days.Thank goodness we had plenty to eat and the power stayed on.
Do any of you remember the video that WLOS made and sold (for charity) from the coverage of the blizzard? I think I still have mine somewhere.
Superstorm 93 is about as crazy as it gets in this part of the country…I remember Ken Bostic calling for 2-4 inches of snow down here in McDowell County on the 11 pm newscast when we already had 4 inches on the ground. The snow started here about 8 pm on friday and didn’t quit till midday Saturday. It snowed 19 inches here with drifts 3-4 feet. I was one of the lucky ones and lost power for only 24 hours.
I was living with my parents in the Quebec section of T’vania County. Thankfully the utility right of way crews had done some clearing that previous summer. The only outage we had was the cable tv for about 12 hours. All my coworkers (I worked at Etowah Elem School) were green with envy when I told them that… they had no power throughout the ordeal.
I think we ended up with 18" of snow. Good sledding on Flat Creek and Reidsiding roads.
We had two spring breaks that year at Etowah… the storm kept us out nearly all the week following the storm and the proper Eastertime break.
I was a student at Warren Wilson College. Most folks rolled out the day before the storm to go enjoy their spring breaks, but there were a couple dozen of us who weren’t going anywhere.
The power went out. Then the beer ran out.
My friend Francis and I went and pulled the hood off an old tractor and created a little pull-sled out of it. We dragged it two miles through the worst of the storm, snow piled up two feet high, next-to-no visibility, up to the Shell station.
We loaded that sucker up with six cases of canned beer and hauled it back to campus.
We were heroes.
I was living in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in 93. I do remember driving to the school where I worked one morning in blowing snow and having my Honda get stuck in a snowdrift. I managed to push it out, then turned on the radio to discover that I was in the middle of a blizzard and school was cancelled.
I was so used to driving in the snow that I hadn’t even realized how bad conditions were until I slid into the snowdrift!
i was living in the los angeles area at the time. unless you count the san gabriel mountains or the castaic-tejon route ("the grapevine"), i can maybe think of one recorded instance where snow fell in la.
l.a. does have one good thing going for it: in-n-out burger. but having easy access to a double double animal, extra crispy fries and a strawberry shake (which would totally be my last meal if i were ever to be executed) means having to endure el niño/la niña and the almost mythical santa ana winds, as well as the flooding, landslides and wildfires that come with them. and that’s not even taking the san andreas fault into account. oh yeah, and those stage 3 smog alerts were lots of fun, too.
i guess living in an area where we might get a blizzard every once in a while is a fair trade. but i sure miss in-n-out burger…
wow, you peoople were busy.
Tarheel Hal, don’t recall the weather channel being here, but maybe it’s on! need to check our listings…
Wow! Fourteen years since the "super storm". I remember snow up to my hips (I’m 6 feet tall), my Blazer getting stuck multiple times driving home from work that Saturday afternoon and being without power for 3 days (which wasn’t bad compaired to a lot of folks). It was 34 degrees in my house by Monday morning. We cooked on our gas grill and cheered when we got power back. I drove to work that morning at 5am with a foot of snow on the ground (the wind hadn’t pick-up by this point). Trees had already started to fall from the weight of the snow. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the streets and power was out on the north side of the city. And Ash, you’re right, it showed the better side of human nature with people helping people pull thru day after day until things were back to normal.
Didn’t the Weather Channel come to Asheville a few years ago do a special about the blizzard? They should run that to commemorate the anniversary.
I was right here at work in WNC. A level transmitter froze and we blew the top off a 120′ tall fiberglass tower and I was the only one who had a Dodge (so I could make it to work). We spent the next several days unfreezing everything! Maybe I’ll just forget about this date.
i was living in CT. i had to dogsit for a family across town, and my sister refused to drive me in her new car. so i walked. took twice as long. stopped at a popeye’s halfway there to thaw. they were the only business still open, but were getting ready to close. i saw one bus and one patrol car.
the dog was happy i made it. she was hungry.
Was closing on my first house on Montford. Hiked over from Kenilworth to be sure it hadn’t fallen in (it wasn’t in particularly good shape), which would make another fun look back in history: How much did 3,000 sf cost back then?
Went on to the Francis then back to my girlfriend’s on Charlotte St. Helped a guy push his car out of the Charlotte St. Ingles (remember that.. ‘course you do) and injured my back – which continues to remind me at this very moment. Hopped in the LandCruiser and went four wheel driving for the next three days.