This Marion Daily Republican article was written on Tuesday, February 27, 1979 as a follow up to the previous weekend’s record snow. See also, Snow Storm of 1979.
Battle to Break Grip of Snow in Third Day
While men with snow removal equipment labored to loosen the grip of winter’s worst snowstorm on Southern Illinois, crews and local officials went ahead with the task of matching up more than 1,000 persons with the automobiles they had abandoned in the snow.
Tom Redickas, county civil defense director, who transferred emergency headquarters from Ordill to the Marion City Hall, said Monday afternoon that all persons had been taken from 900 automobiles and a Greyhound bus stalled on highways near Marion and were located in temporary quarters.
Approximately 200 persons who were taken to Longfellow school in Marion and others lodged in motels were expected to remain there until snow could be removed from highways sufficient to permit driving their vehicles away. Redickas estimated that would be sometime today or Wednesday.
Although Route 13 was open from Carbondale to Harrisburg, Interstate 57 was still closed this morning.
Redickas said 400 vehicles were snowbound on Interstate 57 and 200 on Route 13, 60 along Route 37 and the rest of an estimated 900 on other roads in the county and nearby.
Snow removal efforts were slowed by the very presence of the automobiles which the occupants abandoned to accept transportation and shelter, some of them after spending nearly 24 hours in their vehicles stalled in the snow. Numerous cars were without fuel because drivers had remained with them as long as their gasoline supply permitted operation of the motors to keep the vehicles heated.
Redickas said that two “super” snowplows of the size ordinarily used by the state in snow removal areas upstate, in addition to nine end loading machines for hoisting the snow from pavements, arrived in the county Monday from the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Redickas and Mayor Robert L. Butler praised the work of the owners of four wheel drive vehicles used in rescue work carried out Sunday night and Monday morning. The powerful vehicles provided by individuals and dealers continued to be a main arm of the emergency service today in answering distress calls from snowbound local residents, supplying food and medicine where needed and providing emergency personnel transportation.
The civil defense director also praised the work of five snowmobile owners who provided services by going into areas where drifts kept out even the rugged four wheel drive vehicles.
Miss Pat Enis, 309 S. Duncan St., also lauded both groups of volunteers. She said her broadcast on her citizens band radio asking for help in obtaining needed medication at the Enis home was answered by a CB operator at the wheel of a four wheeler. The medication was obtained and when the big vehicle was unable to break through the snow, the job was designated to a snowmobile operator who completed the job.
A state trauma service helicopter was called into service to deliver a Williamson County man to a hospital after he suffered an apparent heart attack. Redickas said the helicopter had been to Union County Airport to refuel when it was notified of an emergency at the home of Orville Hill, Creal Springs Rt. 2.
Marion police headquarters had received a call for help when Mr. Hill was stricken The family was advised to display a signal on the ground to acquaint the helicopter pilot with the location of the house. Accordingly a red tablecloth was spread on the white snow. The pilot sighted the home, picked up the patient, and delivered him to the Veterans Hospital in Marion.
A surface emergency vehicle was called into service to remove the body of an elderly from her Marion home where she died Monday of apparent natural causes after suffering a three year illness.
Vehicular traffic which was almost non-existent on all streets but the state highways through Marion early Monday began to come to life slightly under a warming sun Monday afternoon. Automobiles including three police cars parked on the tower square downtown were being dug out of the snow. City snow removal machines were being used where possible in an effort to open traffic lanes through the 21 inch weekend snow and its drifts of four feet or more in depth.
Route 37 was open north of Marion today but was still closed south of Marion.
To expedite the opening of I-57, arrangements were made this morning for five school buses to transport stranded motorists from their places of refuge in Marion to their automobiles on the highway so they could move their cars. City Commissioner Homer Askew said that because many of the cars were without gasoline, a tank truck would accompany the buses to supply each automobile enough fuel to get it to a gas station.
State police ordered abandoned automobiles removed from the highway south of Marion to enable snow plows to clear the pavement of snow. The area of abandoned cars south of Marion was opened for transportation of drivers for the stalled cars in vehicles that could negotiate the snow covered pavement.
Tom Redickas, director of the county Emergency and Disaster Service Agency, requested a state helicopter to be used in aerial direction for the clearing of vehicles from clogged highways.
As state resources were concentrated upon getting the highways open, local authorities and volunteers continued working on the problem of freeing the movement of traffic inside the city and meeting emergency needs of Marion residents.
Redickas explained that he had moved his headquarters to the City Hall in Marion from Ordill to take the pressure off city officials and volunteers who had manned telephones Sunday and Monday.
Two phones had been manned constantly by police and volunteers at police headquarters since the storm began. Police Commissioner Ron Joyner put in a shift at the police telephones Monday and Tuesday.
Mayor Robert L. Butler spent most of Sunday and Monday at police headquarters after walking several blocks to a point where he could be picked up by an emergency vehicle unable to get through the drifts that blocked the street to his home.
Police Chief L.B. Hunter walked the entire distance from his home ( on Harper Street) to police headquarters when emergency vehicles were busy elsewhere this morning.
“Our work has just begun,” Hunter said, referring to the snow removal problem inside the city and the task of meeting the emergencies of persons who have been unable to get out of their homes to obtain food or medicine since Saturday.
Remaining closed today were schools, county, state and federal offices.
A mail truck arrived at the Marion post office Tuesday morning after failing to make delivery to Marion Monday. The accumulation of mail because of inability of trucks to travel highways Monday resulted in a delay of distribution to the boxes at the post office. When carrier delivery would be resumed depended upon when carriers could get through the snow.
With warmer weather and a chance of rain predicted for today and tonight, the prospect of flood caused by melting snow was contemplated. Police Chief Hunter said that water had already begun to accumulate in some streets under the heavy blanket of snow during a slight thaw Monday afternoon and was released by the opening of clogged storm sewers.
A high temperature in the 40’s was predicted for Wednesday.
(Extracted from Marion Daily Republican, Tuesday 02/27/1979)