We lived in Chicago for four years during the 1970’s. But we didn’t live there in 1979, a year remembered by Chicagoans for the big blizzard. That winter, the snow overwhelmed the city’s crews. But we were there for a couple of memorable storms. Sometimes Lake Michigan creates a huge barrier that holds the snow storms in place and gives plenty of moisture to evaporate into the clouds. The winds off of the lake can be really severe and if you are close to the lakeshore, the 15- to 20-foot waves are truly impressive. And it’s fresh water. When the waves splash onto Lakeshore Drive, they freeze in place and the ice can build up to more than a foot.

There are a few things about snowstorms in cities that are different than what we experience out here. When all of the land is built up, there is no place to put the snow when it is plowed. The snowplows run down the center of the streets, burying the cars that are parked on either side of the street. The car owners shovel out their cars, tossing the snow back into the street. In many cases, crews need to use front end loaders and trucks to haul the snow out of the city. Chicago at least has a big lake on its eastern edge which is a fairly close place to dump the snow.

Another thing that happens in cities is that when travel becomes difficult, people don’t know what to do with their cars. During one blizzard when we lived in Chicago, I put the chains on my car and was able to get around just fine. The problem is that there were many people who didn’t have chains and whose cars became stuck and were abandoned where they became disabled. Driving down the freeway was a giant slalom course of randomly abandoned cars. Sometimes it was difficult to find a path through the abandoned cars. We later saw pictures in the newspaper of fleets of tow trucks clearing the freeways ahead of the snowplows. A similar phenomenon occurs in residential neighborhoods. People can’t find any place to park their car and end up leaving it in a very inconvenient and awkward place where it has to be moved to allow for the street to be cleared.

Life is a bit simpler around here. Although our annexation into the city has changed our snowplowing services and we don’t yet know what the new routine will be, my neighbors all understand that if a car blocks the street, the snowplow can’t get through. As a result, when someone gets stuck in a snowstorm, we all put on our boots, get out our shovels and go to work until that car is off of the street. I live near the top of a hill. The place cars most often get stuck is at the bottom. I’ve walked down there many times over the years to help extract cars so the snowplow can get up to our place.

While it isn’t anything like the 1979 blizzard, Chicagoans are buttoning up and staying in this morning. The schools are closed. A district with 400,000 students makes news when classes are cancelled. Add in a few suburban school districts and there are a lot of lives disrupted. It is still snowing in Chicago and many places have more than a foot on the ground already. The blizzard warning went into effect Sunday morning as people were getting ready to go to church. More than a thousand flights have been cancelled at O’Hare International Airport.

Of course there is always something amusing about a blizzard in a city - at least for someone like me with a bit of a twisted sense of humor. According to the Chicago Tribune, my main source of news about Chicago, The Disney on Ice presentation of “Frozen” scheduled for the United Center was canceled. “How do you know it’s snowing in Chicago?” “When it really gets bad, they cancel Frozen!”

Police have asked people to refrain from travel, Amtrak has cancelled runs. Some area highways and streets have been closed.

But you can be sure that Chicagoans didn’t let a blizzard get in the way of their Super Bowl parties yesterday. Chicagoans are huge sports fans. After all Chicago is home to the Cubs. Seriously, anyone can cheer for a winner. It takes a real fan to back the Cubs year after year after year.

And, unlike the landscape around here, almost everyone in Chicago has a pub within walking distance. And pubs seem to be gathering places when the weather outside is fierce. So the parties gathered to watch the game as usual yesterday.

Back in the hills, freezing rain on Saturday did slow travel for some folks and quite a few opted to stay at home yesterday morning, fearing slippery conditions. Although the city crews were out and travel wasn’t much of a problem, attendance at church was the lowest of this winter. Timing is everything with the weather, but attitude is also a big factor. The weather affects different people in different ways. Several of our oldest seniors, using walkers to get around, found ways to make it to church yesterday while folks much younger who navigate much easier found it a good day to stay home.

Reporters are calling this week’s blizzard one of the 10 biggest storms ever to hit the city. I guess it is about time for one of the really big storms. After all, you have to be 40 or so to remember the blizzard of ’79. Maybe the blizzard of ’15 will give people something new to recall when they tell stories of the weather they have endured. I know we like to tell the stories of the big storms around here and folks in Chicago are no different.

So, bundle up when you head out and be careful. As the North Dakota saying goes, “We count you as you head out and we count you again when you come in.”

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