This month 45 years ago,
central IN was buried literally by one
of the largest snowfalls in history.
The Blizzard of 78 was in full swing,
30 straight hours of snow blown
around by 50 mile an hour winds
into drifts some 20 feet tall.
In the middle of the mayhem we came
across a mom stranded and struggling
to bring a little girl into the world.
That Blizzard baby is now a 45
year old mom and we want to share
that and other Blizzard stories.
From the WTHR archives,
I think she was mostly
worried about me. Jesse
Caine survived the Blizzard of 78,
but doesn't remember a single thing.
Her birth certificate explains why. January
27th, 1978 she's
a bona fide Blizzard baby.
My mom didn't really say much about it.
At all. For almost 11 hours,
Don verbal waited outside the nurses
room at the school. That's your dad.
So we showed Jesse her incredible
birthday story. Ohh, my gosh, 40
years ago, because Tammy was about to have
a baby and Eyewitness News was there.
Jesse's 19 year old mom was
in labor in the nurses room of
Decatur Junior High School.
Her dad Donald pacing and peeking in
trying to stay cool after the Blizzard,
interrupted their ambulance
ride to the hospital.
And they decided that it would
be better to bring her over here,
you know, and let the baby be born.
Here has to be out halfway
and then have it there.
Meanwhile, in the closed but
crowded Indianapolis Airport,
somebody came up to me and
said we have a woman in Labor,
doctor Charles Maloney said OK,
Doctor Maloney remembers
jumping into a stranger's
4 wheel drive Jeep they got
behind a giant airport plow.
It cleared their way to
a young mom in labor for
11 hours. A doctor with no medicines
or medical instruments reassured
Tammy that everything would be fine.
By the way, he's a plastic surgeon.
Were you sure everything
was going to be fine?
No, of course not.
The doctor and everyone was relieved
when another ambulance finally
arrived to Rush Mom to the hospital.
I have delivered
babies outside the. The hospital before,
but never in quite this situation. Never
want to do it again. Uh, well, not exactly.
Meet Jesse Burba, baby.
Jesse Burba arrived just 15 minutes after
mom and dad arrived at the hospital.
I'm just just glad it's over
with and we're all right.
It's just scary there.
For the last couple hours, Doctor
Maloney's face lit up,
seeing for the very first time
the baby girl. He nearly delivers.
Great, great baby looked great, mom.
Is doing great so. Good ending.
Actually a good beginning
for Jesse's parents.
What are you gonna do?
When she gets a little bit
older and she says, Mommy,
tell me how I was born?
She probably won't believe me.
There will be a story
to tell though.
This 40 year old birthday story,
after all, is totally new to Jesse.
She had to be scared to death.
She had to be scared out of her mind. So,
and probably worried about her unborn baby.
I'm sure both of Jesse's parents have
passed away that they really love.
It looked like they really loved each other.
That love and the kindness of strangers
made for a Blizzard birthday story that
lives today in the faces of Jesse,
her husband Daniel, and their four children.
30 hours of snow, 2 feet of it blown
around by 50 mile an hour,
winds into drifts 10 feet tall.
Indiana never saw anything like it and hasn't
since. Was the city prepared
for a snowstorm like this.
Ohh heaven snow either.
This is once in a lifetime situation.
David Frick was deputy mayor to
Bill Hudnut and one of the people
responsible for preventing a catastrophe.
And this was the Indianapolis and
its finest. The community came
together to face a difficult situation
Wednesday night. The city,
preparing its plows for a snowstorm,
quickly realized it was much
more. Are you in trouble?
Are you in big trouble?
I think we are.
By Thursday morning,
the city was paralyzed. The roads.
Impassable even to emergency vehicles?
Well, there was high anxiety
on the part of all of us,
but we were so damn busy we didn't
have time to think about it.
The Castleton Fire Department borrowed
snowmobiles and four wheel drive vehicles
to save a family from carbon monoxide
poisoning and then rescue dozens of
drivers stranded on I-69, which we
tried to run a shuttle of about approximately
5 four wheel drive vehicles.
The Blizzard worsened.
The mayor made a scary decision.
To pull police off the
streets for their own safety.
And so we were at the mercy of bad people.
If the bad people wanted to do something
about it, the reality is they didn't.
A club of four wheel drive
owners went to work, possibly saving lives,
and they volunteered to take
medications to those who needed
their medications on a regular basis.
Friday brought better weather.
The National Guard in the air and
on the ground was out rescuing
people stranded and experiencing
medical emergencies. We were
signing them on a life
and death priority basis.
Indianapolis put private contractors
to work clearing the streets
of snow and abandoned cars.
dot worked all last night.
These are Bill Hudnut scribbled
notes on his recovery plan.
Get the city back to normal by Monday.
dot public safety,
public transportation,
hospitals were all involved,
along with his plea for people
to stay home and rely on
a neighbor spreading sand on
the slippery intersections.
As the streets cleared,
stranded travelers rushed to the airport.
Families rushed to grocery stores
clearing the shelves of essentials.
I saw many, many people
buying 678 gallons of milk.
By Sunday, Mayor Bill Hudnut
was driving a city snow plow,
making the media rounds and
declaring a hard fought victory.
The city is open,
the city is healthy,
the snow emergency has been lifted,
and we're tunneling out
from under Mother Nature.
Faced with extraordinary
circumstances, the extraordinary
common sense of common people prevail.
Hotels were packed, every key slot
empty as the few workers who could
get in try to keep guests comfortable.
They're meeting friends
from Chicago to Illinois,
South N We were just here together,
but stranded people don't have much
more to do than sit around and eat,
and that meant a lot of hustle
for the limited restaurant crew.
Waitstaff doubled his hosts,
cashiers, servers, and cooks.
When we met Smithy during
the height of the Blizzard,
she'd been on her feet for nearly two days.
And we have to feed the people.
And I was the only one here.
She did tell us the tips were pretty good.
They kept feeling sorry for me,
I think last night. I know
because it wasn't a good service.
At the grocery, people scrambled to
get what was left on the shelves.
Channel 13 did this story five
days after the Blizzard started,
five days after the last food delivery.
In fact, the delivery truck was
still stuck in the parking lot.
Many of the shelves were empty,
especially the bread,
dairy and canned goods and paper products.
But by the time our reporter Ross.
Becker did this story.
There was some milk on the shelf
over the weekend. It was
completely empty and there
was only one place
in town this store could get milk.
And it was all because of the extra
effort by one Indianapolis dairy.
8 workers stranded in the
Maplehurst dairy worked all night
to process and packaged milk.
They said they knew people would
need it when the snow finally
cleared and while out of town,
suppliers couldn't get through
and we felt very important
for us to do the job.
We've had several critical work
18 hours on Friday and Saturday
and come back in Sunday for
another stint to 10 to 15 hours.
But the dairy crew gave much of
the credit to local farmers who
made it through the snow to get
milk to the processing plant.
While the city was digging itself
out and getting back to life,
I found a family living
it up in Ellenberger Park.
That's Kent Demry and his family.
They moved into this 18
foot TP and set up camp.
They were experienced with
her campers back then.
Kent told me this was their way of
escaping all the news and mayhem around them.
Demarie even warned the city he
was coming and tried to get the
handful of necessary permits.
We talked to the gentleman
at the Mayors Office and.
And he suggested that before
we could do this legally,
we just need all kinds of clearance.
We didn't get it.
The man just said, go ahead,
nobody's going to hassle
you. They were roughing
it in the freezing cold.
That's 11 year old Brett taking
a hatchet to some firewood.
40 years later, we caught up with Brett.
The video brought back what he calls
one of the best childhood memories.
That's amazing.
During what do you remember of that?
It was fun just to get out of school.
Go camping. There's nobody there.
That was just a good time.
As much fun as it was, Brett
admitted that if he tried camping
out like this with his kids today,
he'd probably get arrested for child abuse.