Remembering the blizzard of 1947, the epic snowstorm that took New Jersey by surprise

The Blizzard of 1947 – which blanketed New Jersey 70 years ago this December – was the post-Christmas gift that kept on giving in the form of snow, snow and more snow.

Arriving with little warning in the early morning hours on the day after Christmas – the storm continued burying Bergen County and much of the Northeast for two days with 26 inches of snow.

A total of 31 people died in New Jersey during the storm, including four in Bergen County. The storm crippled rail lines, left thousands of cars and truck stranded on roadways, and forced people to take refuge in bus depots, churches or at work.

The snowfall was the state's biggest since the blizzard of 1888, and it set a record that stood until it was surpassed by a snowstorm in January 1996 with 27.8 inches, and again in January 2016 with 28.1, as measured at Liberty International Airport.

As chronicled in the pages of the Bergen Evening Record – the storm paralyzed the county, leaving tales of tragedy and heroism in its wake. The paper pulled no punches in its Dec. 27 city edition, when it blasted the big-type full banner headline:

26-IN. SNOW SMOTHERS EAST

ROADS SNARLED, SUPPLIES CUT

It was a remarkable turnaround from just three days earlier when no one saw the storm coming.

December 1947 was a different era when it came to weather forecasting.

Unlike today when satellite photography, sophisticated radar and a 24/7 news cycle would put the entire nation on alert – the Blizzard of 1947 arrived with very little advanced notice.

Two days before Christmas, a Record reporter writing the weather story played coy with the reader under the headline “It’s snow and it’s December 23. How’s this for self-control.” The story noted that the forecast called for cold and clear weather. It ended with this attempt at irony. “…here’s the last paragraph of a holiday weather story and not once did we mention – you know what – a W…. C…….s”

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As it turned out there was no snow on Christmas. But around 3:30 a.m. the next morning – the flakes began to fall with an intensity that caught many off guard. By 10 a.m. Dec. 26 when the Record – which was then an afternoon paper – went to press there were 7 inches on the ground and snow was falling at about an inch per hour.

Still, forecasters advised that the snow would likely taper off and end that evening with 10 inches of snow, clearing skies and sun expected the next day. Wrong and wrong and wrong. Instead the storm intensified. At one point, snow was falling at a rate of three inches per hour, the Record reported on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 27. By then, snow drifts were piled four feet high in some places especially the northwest corner of the county.

“Thousands of automobiles lay abandoned in the streets and highways like jackstraws where their owners had left them in last evening’s crazy dusk,” the paper reported.

People took refuge where they could. About 600 Bendix employees spent the night in the plant in Teteboro. Dozens of marooned travelers piled into the bus depot on River Street in Hackensack. Five law-abiding residents slept in cells at the Hackensack police station.

Tragedy struck four people, most of whom tried to go to or from work. The paper reported a 62-year-old man collapsed in the snow after trying to push his car in Glen Rock. Other motorists carried him to a service station where a policeman was unable to resuscitate him.

There were heroics as well. A Hackensack police officer rushed a pregnant woman to Hackensack Hospital right before she gave birth. Two Fort Lee policemen in a 1930 “jalopy” got a pregnant woman to Englewood Hospital just in time. In Teaneck, a 4-year-old boy was cut severely after tumbling through a window where he had been watching his mother shovel snow. Two police officers rushed the boy to a nearly doctor’s office. When the doctor said the boy had to get to hospital. The officers took turns carrying the injured youngster on their backs a mile through the snow to Holy Name Hospital. He survived.

Growing disappointment



In Carlstadt, a 12-year-old Edna Corbett watched the snow fall. Her Girl Scout troop was supposed to go to New York City on Dec. 27 to see the Christmas show. They were also going to Tofinetti’s, a Manhattan restaurant famous for their open roast beef sandwiches.

“I can still see the picture in front of me of the house, and the snow and disappointment,” Edna Corbett, a Waldwick resident, says nearly 70 years later.

Instead, her family stayed home. Someone had given them two old pairs of skis that were put to use. “I could stand on them and go down to the backyard,” Corbett recalls.

The blizzard made for a memorable Christmas week. “And I got over my disappointment," says Corbett. The Girl Scouts eventually made their trip into the city, and she got her roast beef sandwich.

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