The Lull Before The Storm?
By Larry Lee, BraceBeagling Editor
January 14, 2006

This photo shows the stranded cars in the snow banks in downtown Chicago in 1967. (Photo by the Library Of Chicago)

If you live elsewhere you may not have noticed but here in Michigan we have just enjoyed a few days of unusually warm weather. It has been a much welcomed reprieve from the month or so of below freezing temperatures and two foot of snow we had witnessed while it was yet still fall.

That snow is now gone with the exception of a few black, ugly piles that still remain. Some beaglers have even managed to run a few braces of hounds. Neil Roberts and Ed White have been working their dogs for most of last week at Neil's running grounds near Lapeer, Michigan. My partner, Ralph Gillum worked a bitch that just got off pups and now has here back into her fine running mode.

I guess you might say we have witnessed our annual January thaw. Of course we don't get this break in the weather every year. But when we do we hound enthusiasts enjoy it and take advantage of it. I guess you might say it is a dose of much needed medicine that will hopefully carry us over until sometime in March or early April when spring arrives. However, some years it can be the lull that comes before the storm.

While watching the History channel one night last week I tuned into a program concerning big winter snow storms in the windy city of Chicago. The day before the big storm hit Chicago in 1967 the temperature was in the forties and the city was witnessing spring like conditions. But that all changed in a big hurry. Snow started falling about 5 a.m. on Thursday, January 26. Snow continued to fall through Friday morning for a total accumulation of 23 inches with drifts to 6 feet.

According to information I gathered from the Chicago Public Library, "Cold weather and periodic snowfalls over the next 10 days created more havoc. Although trains continued to run, cars, buses and planes didn't. Almost all schools, offices and other work places were closed for several days. Commuters unable to reach home spent several nights camped out in downtown hotels, O'Hare International Airport and stranded cars. The Department of Streets and Sanitation, which is responsible for plowing streets, estimated that 75 million tons of snow fell on Chicago...". According to the article 60 people lost their lives. Most deaths were attributed to shoveling snow.

If I am not mistaken that same storm that hit Chicago moved on west and hit my hometown of Flint, Michigan. The first day of the storm we received 18 inches of that white fluffy stuff. The weather man reported late that evening that the storm had subsided and the snow fall was over and so I traveled 4 miles to my third shift job at General Motors. The weather man was wrong. The snow kept on falling and the temperature started falling and the wind came up. By the next morning another foot had fallen and the roads were nearly impassable. it took we better than 3 hours to get home that morning. I just pulled my car off the highway and walked the quarter of a mile to my home. The snow was nearly waist deep. I wasn't able to dig out my car until the following Sunday afternoon!

Maybe we will be lucky this winter and not get hit by one of those huge snowfalls like the storm that his Chicago and Flint in 1967. As I write this the weather has already cooled off and we have about an inch of new snow on the ground this morning--not a couple of foot like we received in 1967. Dog training is over for now here in Michigan.