The following reports were gleaned
from ArgusPress Newspapers.
Just before the storm, it was so warm that farmers took the weather for an early spring and were getting ready to begin planting their fields. Then on March 24-25, 1947, about 10 inches of wet snow fell, probably not a record. But the snow drifted making roads impassible and then the drifts froze solid.
Everything was plugged up tighter than a drum, he said. Nothing moved for three days. Kuchar was working the second shift at Mid-West Abrasives and after he punched his timecard at 3 a.m., March 25, he found that he couldnt get his car out of the parking lot at the plant.
He waited until 7 a.m., when things didnt look much better, and finally walked to his parents home, near Kirby Corners. The walk took two or three hours, partly because the snow was waist-deep on some parts of the road. Its quite an experience walking in a snowstorm like that, he said. Youd have to be young to make it.
He was 20 years old at the time, and engaged to be married in a few weeks. The storm crippled the city, the Owosso Argus-Press reported, over the three days that it took to restore order.
Cars were stranded everywhere, including eight that became stuck in the intersection of Main and Washington. Four-foot snowdrifts were reported in the business district.
Large areas were without electricity, and many people with electric pumps went without water as well. Heating oil could not be delivered. And bread, milk and meat trucks were unable to enter the city. But the wind blew loose snow back onto the roads as soon as the crews could break it up or plow it out. Many of the plows became stalled in the snowdrifts.
A plane with skids for landing on the snow, was brought to Owosso for use as an ambulance.
At some point, Kuchar saw the county road crews trying to break through the hardened snow drifts, near Shipman and Gilna. They rammed the drift with a plow and shoveled away the chunks of ice as best they could. On the third day of the storms grip, a call went out from what is now Hurley Hospital in Flint: the hospital had to have milk for the babies. Although the Borden Company dairy in Owosso had resumed local deliveries by that time, few dairymen had been able to reach Owosso and none were able to get to Flint with their milk.
M 21 had been closed, just as many of the dirt roads around the county were still closed. Farmers were storing more and more milk, with no way to get it to the dairy.
Kuchar recalls that there was a milk hauler at Kirby Corners whom the hospital had begged for milk, but the hauler couldnt get a truck out onto the road. He asked Kuchars brother, Tony Kuchar, to try to pick up some milk and take it to Flint.
Tony Kuchar, called on his brother Henry, because he had a bulldozer. Kuchar had bought the bulldozer because it could pull a plow through a piece of soggy land that his family owned; it was too wet for a wheel tractor to work, he said.
He hooked the bulldozer onto a farm wagon and called on at least a half-dozen farmers, mostly along M 21. The dozer was seven tons and the snow was so hard that I just drove on top of the snow banks, Kuchar said.
As he gathered milk, county road crews from both Genesee and Shiawassee counties struggled to open M 21 and create a passage from Owosso to Flint. After collecting the milk, Henry Kuchar pulled the wagon to the shoulder of M 21, which had been cleared by that time, and then he went back to the farm and pulled his brothers truck about a half-mile, to M 21.
Tony Kuchar hauled the milk to the McDonald Dairy in Flint, where it was pasteurized and sent to the hospital. Henry said that, by his recollection, Owosso has a heavy storm every ten years or so, and he remembers them well, because hes plowed roads on and off as a contractor for the city for more than 50 years. But none of them have measured up to that blizzard in 1947.
Here are some of the heaviest and worst snowstorms of the past century, according to our records.
Dec. 11-12, 2000.... Almost 10 inches of snow and winds gusting up to 45 mph added up to a shutdown of schools, businesses and government offices countywide.
Feb. 3 1982.... Some 12 inches of snow fell. As road crews plowed all night Sunday and then worked into the day Monday, they filled up the snow dump near the Oakwood Avenue bridge and started carrying it out to the Hopkins Lake area.
Jan. 12-13, 1979.... A snowstorm that dropped 12-15 inches on the county, starting Friday afternoon, canceled school on Monday. State and county offices were already closed for Martin Luther King day. Citizens were urged not to travel, so that they would interfere as little as possible with snow removal.
Jan. 26, 1978.... After a snowfall of just six inches, 60 mph winds drifted the snow 5-10 feet deep. The Army Corps of Engineers was called upon for the second time to clear county roads.
Jan. 10, 1977.... With county road crews on strike, five inches of snow fell across the county, making a total of 14 inches on the ground. Rural roads were not cleared until President Carter declared 11 Michigan counties a federal disaster area, in early February, citing the number of closed roads throughout the distressed counties. His decision allowed the Army Corps of Engineers to hire private contracters to open the roads and keep them that way.
Jan 26-28, 1967.... After a false spring that topped out at 55 degrees, more than 19 inches of snow paralyzed the city. It drifted nearly as high as the first stories of some downtown shops. Stores ran out of milk and bread, because delivery trucks couldnt get through. Drifts as deep as 15 feet were reported across rural roads. Police and firefighters borrowed snowmobiles and used them to respond to medical calls, to deliver medicine and furnace parts and for most everything else. For the first time in its history, the Argus-Press didnt print a newspaper, because it would have been impossible to deliver.
1962.... About 12.5 inches of snow fell in one storm.
1958 ....Ten inches of snow fell in one day.
March 25-27, 1947.... About 10 inches of wet snow fell and formed drifts before freezing into solid ice. It took days to open up the roads and there were shortages of milk, bread and meat. It was impossible to deliver mail and heating oil.