Great Blizzard of 1888 - Photos

[TorchTheWitch]

53. it's just terrible to even imagine

I had just been saying in another post here...

No one had expected this at all. Temperatures had been rather mild with a lot of rain but they suddenly plummeted into the single digits in a matter of hours. People were out and about when the storm hit so violently and not at all dressed for such weather. Some people died in the street on the way from here to there just going a couple of blocks. I think most of those people died from exposure and exhaustion trying to fight their way through the storm and just couldn't go on anymore combined with disorientation as to where they were with the white out conditions. Others stepped into monstrous drifts they didn't know where there with the white out conditions and couldn't get themselves out. Last year I found out the hard way that just having one leg plunge into a drift nearly up to the crotch is DAMN hard to get out of. Thank goodness I didn't get both legs stuck or I wouldn't have been able to get out! It was such a struggle that one boot came off down at the bottom of the drift and I had to dig it out. It was terrifying.

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I'm still trying to find out more information about how many people were found dead in the snow. I'm trying to read photocopies of newspaper article at the time, but the copies are so bad or so small they're really hard to read. I did find a drawing of the extrication of one body (wealthy man George Baremore) from the snow on 7th street by accident though. Back then photography was still pretty young, and newspapers still used drawings instead of real photos. Interestingly though I also found it it was one of or the first time that amateur photographers took most of the photos of this event. Glancing at other drawings in newspapers they seem to tell the story of what happened to people on the streets during the storm pretty eloquently.



And I just found this, too...

http://history1800s.about.com/od/crimesanddisasters/ss/Great-Blizzard-Of-1888.htm

In the freezing and blinding conditions, it was estimated that 400 people died, including 200 in New York City. Many victims had become trapped in snowdrifts.

In one famous incident, reported on the front page of the New York Sun, a policeman who ventured out onto Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street saw the arm of a man protruding from a snowdrift. He managed to dig the well-dressed man out.

"The man was frozen dead and had evidently lain there for hours," the newspaper said. Identified as a wealthy businessman, George Baremore, the dead man had apparently been trying to walk to his office on Monday morning and collapsed while fighting the wind and snow.

A powerful New York politician, Roscoe Conkling, nearly died while walking up Broadway from Wall Street. At one point, according to a newspaper account, the former U.S. Senator and perennial Tammany Hall adversary became disoriented and stuck in a snowdrift. He managed to struggle to safety, but his health was so damaged that he died a month later.