The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-03
WHAT A REAL BLIZZARD IS LIKE.

A Different Affair to the Flurrics
Known by that Name in the East.
Chicago Times.
"Your use of the word blizzard here
In Chicago is amusing to me-" said J..
w. Elkins, of Minnesota. Now, there
Is nothing unusual in this weather. It's
cold, to be sure, and it's windy, and
there is some snOw-the three elements
which go to make UP a genuine blizzard,
but in'so. modified a form as to make
the USE Of that word entirely out OF
place. y
"a blizzard" continued Mr.. Eikins,
as his face became serious with the
recollections the theme brought to mind,
"a blizzard is something which the man
who has been out in one will never for
get, and 1t impresses one with he awful
power of nature as the SlOw-moving,
fu-nnel-shaped cyclone does, and one
who knows these dreadful winter storms
would no sooner encounter them than
he would a cyclone.
II was up on the Northern Pacific in
the early days of March, 1882. The win
ter had been remarkable for its open
ness, and the whole Northwest had
been bathed in sunshine for months.
Some cold weather had been expert
enced, but the old settlers were con-
graduating themselves upon their COM
parative immunity from extreme wealth
er, when Friday, March s. / think it
was. just about noon. the wine swung
into the north and northwest, and one
Of the most dreadful storms that ever
swept the Western prairies came howl
ing and shrieking down upon the unsus-
pecting folk.
1.-THE WIND blew a gale fully sixty
miles an hour, the snow filled the air
like a fog and obscured all objects as a
curtain would do, and the mercury
dropped out of sight,, the spirit Their
mometers registering forty-five degrees
below zero. 1t was impossible TO live
in the storm. A young telegraph opera
tor had taken charge of the Northern
Pacific station at jamestown that very
day. In the early evening he started
down the principal street to deliver a
message to the Roman Catholic priest.
A man stepped out on the street for a
moment. and through he shrieking of
the storm he heard a call for help, and,
following the direction Of the sound,
came to the young operator frozen
nearly to death in the snow not twenty
feet away. 1 helped restore the young
fellow, but he was ~dreadfully frozen,
and it was long before he recovered.
That was only one incident. but it
illustrates how completely at it's mercy
the blizzard holds it's victims, even in
the t~horoughfares of towns of con
siderable size. Out upon the prairie the
~feffects are infinitely worse. How many
a poor devil caught out in one of them
has travelled round and round in a cir
Gle until, overcome with and
exposure, he has sunk down in the dry
snow to his deatn. In the storm or
which / speak l recall that one mother
at Stubborn, a few miles east of James,
town, went out that day to feed the
stock in the barn, taking with her a
small child. The distance from the
house was but a few hundred feet, but
when the storm was over and the sun
shone forth again mother and child were
found, the latter clasped close in his
mothers last embrace, a few feet from
the sheltering barn. They had wan
dered perhaps for hours, with the sting
ing snow in their faces, every flake like
a needle prick, binding them and hid
ing from view the warm places of shell
ter so near at hand.
IT see by your papers that Nebraska
has had just such a visitation as this.
You will never know what 1T means till
YOU experience a real blizzard, and after
you have had that experience you will
never again refer to a little storm like
this as a blizzard