76° F | Schenectady, NY
Back-to-back blizzards in '58
February — with Valentine’s Day — appeals to lovers.
February of 1958 — with two blizzards in two weeks’ time — appealed to lovers of snow.
The first storm began on Friday, Feb. 7, and frosted upstate New York. Winds built towering drifts on highways and cut visibility to zero. Gusts reached 56 miles per hour.
Nobody was ready for a second monster storm. That’s what showed up on Sunday, Feb. 16, as 21 inches of snow fell in the Capital Region.
“City Paralyzed by Heavy Show; Northeast Buried” read the big and bold headline in the Gazette, Posted on February 7, 2011.
Snow way was one way — the only way — in Schenectady on Sunday, Feb. 16, 1958. A snowstorm roared into town and dropped 21 inches of new flakes. Dave Flanders, 13, points out traffic law on Liberty Street. It was the Capital Region’s second blizzard of the month.
Edmund Nickel of 15 Selden St. digs out a fire hydrant after Blizzard II of 1958. Fifty-three years later, firefighters still love guys like Nickel for keeping their water sources clear.
Keith Holmes of Granville, a toll collector for the New York State Thruway at Carman during the winter of 1958, holds up his hands to halt cars on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1958. Heavy snows in central and western New York forced state officials to close the Thruway from Albany to Buffalo.
A pedestrian trudges through the snow on Upper State Street in Schenectady and passes a car dealership where the inventory is wrapped in white. The Capital Region was covered in snow during February 1958.
Dick Johnson, 17, wears a smile instead of a hat as he prepares to free snow-covered cars on a narrow Schenectady street. Dick was on the job Feb. 16, after the second big storm.
Schoharie County farmer Otto Schlander checks a milk can on Feb 13, 1958, one of the first to leave his farm in nearly a week. Heavy snows and drifts had isolated his farm; sheriff's deputies and state conservation personnel helped Schlander and seven other marooned farmers.
TV repairman Bud McCabe wasn’t making any house calls during the middle of February in 1958. His car was parked at his Schoharie farm at Sprakers Road and Route 162, and also parked in a fortress of snow. Farmers in the county had a particularly tough time with the bad weather, which began Friday, Feb. 7 and rolled into Sunday, Feb. 9.
