The sky is falling! Region under alert! Pittsburgh braces for massive winter storm! Winter’s wrath! Giant Eagle’s parking lot is full, but their toilet paper shelves are empty. The news of the past week has been dominated by the prediction of a serious winter storm coming this weekend. Originally hitting inches of snow, the prediction a day before the arrival of the storm modified to perhaps a dozen. The potential consequences of the storm are still severe. To quote the storm warning, “Travel could be very difficult to impossible!” All manner of events have already been postponed or cancelled. Today’s technology makes it possible for us to predict with reasonable accuracy the magnitude of Mother Nature’s disruptions of our comfortable existence; today’s social environment forces us to over-react. The cdifferene between today and life in my youth is remarkable.
The two biggest natural disasters of the mid-1900s were the St. Patrick’s Day Flood in 1936 and the Big Snow of Thanksgiving weekend in 1950. The contrast between the “Big Snow” and our recent storm is well worth documenting. In the Fall of 1950 I was a Sophomore at Penn State, happy to come home for the Thanksgiving holiday. An additional incentive was the opportunity for me to attend two football games between Pitt and Penn State. The big attraction was the varsity game at Pitt Stadium on Saturday. Coached by Len Casanova, Pitt had amassed a disappointing season, but was still favored over Penn State, where new coach Rip Engle was struggling to install an offensive philosophy featuring the “T formation”. In addition, the Freshman teams from both universities were scheduled to play at the Stadium on Friday. Pitt’s undefeated team included several well- known local prospects – Bobby Epps, John Reger, Bill Priatko, and Scott Township’s Joe Zombek – as well as Lou Cimarolli, fresh from an All-State performance leading Bridgeville High School to a WPIAL championship. My father and I were eager to see Lou get his chance at the college level. The Pitt Freshmen had just defeated arch-rival West Virginia 22 to 19 at the Bridgeville stadium the previous weekend, with Lou scoring the winning touchdown on a long run.
Wednesday’s paper reported that the threat of rain on Friday might force Pitt to move the game to their Ellsworth Center Field, to protect the turf at Pitt Stadium for the varsity game on Saturday. When we checked the paper on Thursday, we learned that that move had indeed occurred. Its main consequence was changing our trolley stop in Oakland. We should have paid more attention to the weather forecast in Friday morning’s Post-Gazette, “Cloudy, followed by snow squalls, windy and turning much colder today and tonight”. By the time we headed for the bus stop, it was snowing and even beginning to accumulate. Undaunted, we took the bus into Pittsburgh. By the time we arrived there, it was snowing in earnest, so we promptly found another bus home, thanking Hudge Villani for delivering us safely. The snow was certainly deep by the time we got home. The Saturday Post-Gazette reported that the Friday accumulation had eclipsed the fourteen inches of snow that fell in a memorable storm in 1944 and suggested that there was still more to come.
And, indeed there was. The snow continued to accumulate all day Saturday and into early Sunday. By the time it had ceased, we measured thirty-two inches of snow in our front yard; that was memorable! The official total recorded by the Weather Bureau was 27.9 inches. By Sunday the steady snow had stopped although there still were flurries and minimal accumulation each day for the next several days. Once we got our sidewalk cleaned, we walked “Downtown” and found a very unfamiliar environment there. I distinctly remember seeing kids playing football in the middle of the heart of Bridgeville at the intersection of Station Street and Washington Avenue, with the traffic lights functioning perfectly even though there was no possibility of any traffic. “Downtown” was a real Ghost Town; it would be several days until the streets were cleared and it was possible for a semblance of normality to resume.
On Wednesday I was able to return to State College. Greyhound provided enough buses to haul all the local Penn Staters back. I recall standing in line as each bus was filled and dispatched. I think they were staggered sufficiently that there was time to service each busload when it pulled into a small hotel halfway there (Duncansville) for a rest stop. Once we got to State College we found another community recovering from the storm. They had not had as much snow as we did, but the lawns were completely covered with a thick layer of ice. There actually were students ice-skating to class!
Needless to say, the Varsity Pitt-Penn State game had been postponed. It was played a week later at Forbes field before a tiny crowd of 7,000, with State pulling an upset, 21 to 20. Back at school, I listened to the game on the radio. One of my dorm-mates in Nittany 30, Paul Anders, was the hero, scoring two touchdowns. Nittany Dorms were leftover World War II Army barracks, a far cry from the fancy quarters college students occupy today. There were about forty of us in our dorm, including three varsity football players. How times have changed! Today a “student-athlete” of Anders’ talent would be earning five hundred thousand dollars a year and living in a fancy apartment.
I have been writing this in the midst of “Snowmageddon 2026” in Beth’s home while she and Mike are outside shoveling snow. I am struck by our naivete in 1950, in contrast with the weather forecasting capability we enjoy today. Imagine leaving for a football game in the beginning of a thirty-two-inch snowstorm! Ignorance is indeed bliss.