THE BLIZZARD OF SATURDAY

One of the Worst Wind Storms on Record Here

[People’s Press, 25 January 1910]

Welland, Jan. 24-Old timers whose whiskers are white with the years, and whose memories are ripe with experiences of early county days, of times when there was no Welland, but Merrittville, declare that they never knew of a storm with the severity of the one that swooped down on this town last Saturday.

Early in the day it came a gentle breeze, giving such fair promise of a good day, that a dozen farmers braved the slushy roads and came to market.

By noon it was a gale, and by one o’clock it had developed into a hurricane.

In this hurricane came snow, blinding in its intensity.

It is well that it was not cold, as they speak of cold in the far west, but it was a blizzard, the like of which has probably never passed this way before.

Business was paralyzed.

One could not see two feet away.

The blinding snow mercilessly filled the eyes of those who had to go out and many staggered like drunken men.

One young lady en route to the M.C.R. Station was blown over and had to take refuge in a neighboring house.

“Red” Jones who handles the ribbons for Mr. Minor, the buss-man, was lifted off his seat in the front of the buss, but hung to the ribbons.

At Fort Erie two cutters were overturned by the gale and the occupants injured.

Freight trains were stalled at the Falls, it being unsafe to send them across the bridge.

Business was suspended.

Several of the merchants did not return for the afternoon.

Some of the farmers who drove in early in the day, remained till Sunday morning, when they made their way home through drifts and bare spots.

Only five inches of snow fell.

It was not the depth, but the way it came down.

Places that were supposedly tight before, little chinks in windows, hitherto unnoticed cracks under doors, all wore white trimmings inside.

The snow drifted everywhere.

It was most artistic in its designs, and miserably partial.

One man had his walks swept by great nature’s brush, swept as clear as a board.

The man next door had a drift three feet high to clear away.

The wind had a fine sweep at the corner of Muir and Main streets.

And on Sunday the public awoke and those who ventured out found a long drift of pure white on this busy thoroughfare.

During the storm there were many collisions.

Some of them were head-on between men and those of the opposite sex.

There was not time to stop to apologize. Those who collided simply cleared the snow from their eyes and hurried on.

And Sunday the snow fell fitfully, and that which had piled up melted from the windows and Welland woke up and commenced to dig itself out.