20 years later, remembering the Blizzard of '96

I know exactly where I was 20 year ago this morning.

I am guessing you do, too.

I was in bed with a man at the Green Valley Motor Inn up on Baltimore Pike.

Let me try to explain.

Yesterday and today mark the 20th anniversary of the Blizzard of '96, the epic storm that dumped more than 30 inches of snow on the Delaware Valley, paralyzing the region and much of the East Coast.

I was scheduled to work that Sunday. I had spent a restless Saturday night getting up every 10 minutes and checking out the window to see if the forecast monster storm had arrived yet.

As I remember it started snowing about 3 a.m. I quickly got dressed and headed for the office. Remember, there was no working from home back then. As you can expect, my wife was less than thrilled.

I did not see her again until Tuesday.

In the 33 years that I have been making the drive to beautiful, downtown Primos, that remains the only night I did not make it home. In fact, I spent two nights holes up at the Green Valley, which is no longer there. I always thought they should have placed a plaque at the site to honor the few hearts - or slightly insane - folks who made it into the Daily Times offices that day.

Ironically, the big story that day, an Eagles playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys, quickly became an afterthought as the storm pounded the region.

Assistant City Editor Len LaBarth made it in, as did Production boss Michael D'Arienzo and his assistant Ed McGowan. We dutifully put together a story detailing the historic storm, then watched sadly as it rolled off the press, only to be stacked in the press room. Gov. Tom Ridge had ordered all vehicles off the roads. And that included newspaper delivery trucks.

It remains one of the oddest - and sadder - things I've ever experienced at the newspaper. Seeing all those newspapers stacked up knowing they were not going to be delivered. Eventually, they went out with the next day's edition.

Then we had to decided where we were going to spend the night. The company said they would put us up at the Green Valley. Getting there turned out to be an adventure.

We considered hoofing it to the Green Valley. At that point the snow was up to our knees.

Somehow, our maintenance boss John Stier got word of our plight and decided to come to our rescue. He said that if we walked to what was then a CVS around the corner on Providence Road, he'd get us to the Green Valley.

We walked out of the building into the teeth of the storm. The snow was coming down sideways, stinging your face. You could barely see. You couldn't tell where our front parking lot ended and Mildred Avenue started.

It was all we could do to make it around the corner. We huddle freezing and shivering at the CVS when Stier showed up in his classic old Caddy.

What followed was a car ride that I will never forget. The ride up the Green Valley normally would probably take a few minutes. As I recall it took us almost an hour, and I'm still not sure how we all survived. After the second spin-out I was sure we were going to have to abandon the car and walk. Several guys in four-wheel drive pickups looked at us as if we were insane and warned us to get off the roads. We probably should have taken their advice.

Eventually, we made it to the Green Valley.

We ate. And we drank. Man, did we drink.

Then we collapsed into bed.

Unfortunately, the room we had only had one bed. That's how I managed to spend the night in bed with Len LaBarth. Len is no longer with us, but I will always have that memory.

When we got up Monday morning, incredibly, it was still snowing. We walked down the middle of a deserted Baltimore Pike and Oak Lane to get to the paper. A few more people made it in that day, some by using the train.

Monday night I still was not willing to test my luck, so I spent another night at the Green Valley.

Maybe that is one of the reasons I hate winter. And snow.

But I do know this. It is something I will never forget.

My wife probably won't either. I basically abandoned her, leaving her alone in the house with two kids. Thankfully, our neighbor came to our rescue and plowed out our driveway. When I finally got home Tuesday afternoon, most of the drive was still less than great. Our driveway was like a tunnel, with snow piled over your head on each side.

Tonight I think I will raise a glass. To Mother Nature. To the late, great Len La Barth. To John Stier.

To the Blizzard of '96.

And to the hope that I never experience that kind of storm again.