What The Children’s Blizzard Taught! Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten!
I am running late to post today. I started something yesterday but with the weather outside and with so many areas effected, I changed topic at the last moment. The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin was a book that I read a few years back, like over 10 years ago, and it was horrific to read about over 500 people that died on January 12, 1888. But watching the map and the areas that are being effected brought me to recall this moment in history and Mr. Laskin book.
The book took local written history, diaries, newspaper clippings, and pulled together the facts. Mr. Laskin did a fanatic job of giving the facts of the case, the missed opportunities, the heroes, the fallen, the families that were effected, and those that got lucky. If you have a chance to read the book, I would highly recommend it.
During the 1930’s, FDR created the W{A Federal Writers’ Project to give writers jobs during the depression. One of many projects that these writers took on was the Blizzard. They interviewed survivors 42 years later. Most of them were the children that survived but other were the teachers, parents, and town folks that remembered that day. The day was not unlike Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy to our memories. These stories can be found in the Library of Congress which is online for many items.
The Children’s Blizzard which is sometimes call the Schoolhouse Blizzard was a moment in history which helped expand the U.S. Weather Bureau. The blizzard spurred the need for better communications as just before the blizzard happened wires were sent down the line about the unusual weather patterns. Many of the were not even looked at until later as this was a new field and forecasting was just beginning. If these wires had been reviewed and understood, many of the children may have survived.
The weather that day had given a false it being a wonderful day. The morning of January 12 started with unseasonal mild temperature which lead a lot of the population out without coats and to get stuff done as the Midwest had had frigid temperature, ice storms and in some places over 40 inches of snow. Some of the lucky children were those that worked on their family farms and their parents keep them home to do work that had been put off due to November and Decembers weather.
Unfortunately, about the same time that children were being let out of school to go home, a sudden change in the weather pattern hit the Upper Midwest. The warm morning and afternoon turned so quickly that many children did not make it home. Just imagine a 40 degrees sunny day that suddenly dropped to freezing Artic snow that blow so badly that you could not see 3 feet in front of you within minutes.
This is what the children were in. Children use to walked up to 3 miles to get to the one room school house who teacher was usually a local farmers daughter. Many of the teachers saw that a storm was moving in and closed the school early so that the children could get home before it completely came in. They did not know that they were sending the children to their death. The storm descended so quickly.
Stories about being lucky to find a fence to follow back to the farm or barn. Older children pulling their younger siblings to safety. A teacher that took her class a mile and half back to her house as the school house did not have the wood, blankets, or food to keep the child for the night, parents and other search parties finding children. But then there are also stories of finding all the children from a family die, a parent that went looking for a child who did not make it back home alive only to find that the child was in a house along the way or at the school, etc.
Each story that you read both in Mr. Laskin book, the Library of Congress, or other places tells one important thing, lives would have been saved if they had any warning of the intensity of the story. Between the blue nice weather around 2pm to the not being able to see three steps in front of you by 3:30pm was way to quick for children to walk up to 3 miles home.
A lot of families were found dead during the next few days who were home. Many of these residents were new to the area and their housing was not the best. With the hurricane winds, roofs came off. With the recent weather, wood might have been low. With the winds, chimneys did not work. Or parents that went looking for children who got them home but were left with icy wet clothing that they could not get off and get a fire going. Many people also had frost bite which those that lived might have lost a limb.
The other thing that is not reported on is the livestock that was allowed out for the day and did not get back into the barn in time. Farmers and their families that had one warm day to get supplies from town or go to church or other adventures got stuck in town or did not make it home and their animals who had been let out for the day were left to fend for themselves. Even with the farmer and their families at home, they did not have time to get the animals to safety before having to save themselves. Many of their animals were found died the next day or days later.
As these animals were the farmers food supplies and cash for the next year. Many of the farmers in the area also had lower food source for their family during the next year. Some even lost their farmers as these animal would have been sold for their mortgage, seeds to plant in the fall, use to work the farm, milk for the baby, clothes for the family, etc. It was not just the lives that were taken that afternoon and during the night, it was also a disaster for many of the families futures on their farms.
The Children’s Blizzard was said to have killed 235 people. Mostly children due to the timing of the storm. But the truth is a better estimate was closer to 1,000 deaths with children, family, and others that were never reported at the time. This storm included several states and most importantly, it got the weather as a national issue. The U.S. Weather Bureau was created under the Department of Agriculture within 2 years, i.e. it was most important for farmers at the time for crops.
Before the U.S. Weather Bureau started, the Founding Fathers and others at the time, keep records of weather. It was a bit of a past time but like all cultures, weather is important to keep the crops and knowing when to plant and harvest. Keeping records goes back to the Midas and even before that in the Americas.
As the U.S. expanded, the weather became more important and was basically through volunteer work. The Smithsonian Institute was instrumental in starting to map weather and weather patterns. In 1849, they started to supply weather instruments to telegraph companies and establish an extensive observation network. These telegraph companies were the beginning of being able to get a lot of data to a central place for forecasters to learn about weather patterns. This would also be the start of being able to warn the next station miles away that a big storm was coming.
About 20 years later, in 1870, President Ulysses S Grant signed into law a National Weather Service within the U.S. Army for the benefit of citizens for forecasts and warnings. The military would run it until the Children’s Blizzard and Johnstown flood that killed 2,209 people pushed the Weather Service until it’s own organization.
The U.S. Weather Bureau was in a new scientific field as well as being depended on for early warnings. Many of the greatest leaps forward in forecasting storms, floods, and other weather events, would come out of the weather department. They even carried out experiments like rain making, observation on temperatures at different heights, and so much more. They issued warnings for flooding based on were the rivers were at and their tributaries, hurricane warnings, navigation warning for airplanes and sea craft, tsunamis, and other hazardous weather.
The warnings that go through the phone was started by them. At first, it would go to a home phone. Now, it goes to anyone that is in the area of a certain cell tower. Countless life’s and property is saved by warning of flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other hazardous weather events every year.
Earthquakes are very random and very few in the U.S., at least costly ones. In Japan, they have several and have created a system which can give about 15 seconds warning. That 15 seconds can be the difference of life and death. You might not be able to get out of the house but you can get under a table, turn off a stove, stop a car, or otherwise, get in a better place then you are at.
The weather is a very changing thing. Through the years, we have learned that warnings and research into new technologies have saved life and property. Each weather disaster has made people take notice and for others to learn how to better save lives and property. Will we have to relearn the lesson?