It Could Be Worse: Seven of New York’s All-Time Biggest Snow Storms
The “Great White Hurricane” of 1888
This was easily the New York Snow Storm To End All New York Snow Storms (you don’t get a nickname like the “Great White Hurricane” for nothing, after all). The notorious 1888 blizzard battered the entire East Coast—some places got up to 50 inches—but is generally considered to have done the worst of its damage to New York City, which was hit with 22 inches of snow. Thanks to high winds, the city was filled with snow drifts up to 40 feet high, and the East River was frozen enough that people could (and did) actually just walk between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
All told, the blizzard resulted in over 400 deaths (including 100 people who were “lost at sea”) and did such horrendous damage to above ground train tracks as well as power, telegraph, and telephone lines that it served as the catalyst for moving New York’s transportation system underground. Even once the storm had passed, the flooding from all the melting snow caused a second round of expensive, devastating damage.
The whole thing was a nightmare, but was also responsible for the following anecdote:
“One man suffered a gash on his forehead when he fell into a snow drift.The drift was soft and deep, but his head struck the leg of a dead horse buried there.For some time afterward, the man showed his friends the wound and boasted that he was the first person ever kicked by a dead horse.”
Storm stories really aren’t what they used to be.