Omaha woke up on Jan. 10, 1975, expecting a normal work and school day.
Arlene Schlueter was nine months pregnant.
Dennis Tripp was about to drive with his brother and father to a remodeling job near Valley.
John Sorensen was on his way to the Henry Doorly Zoo to tend to tigers and bears.
Owen Knutzen and H. Vaughn Phelps would be anticipating only ordinary headaches as superintendents of two of Omaha’s then-three school districts.
Al Bangert would be into a shift at the National Weather Service office at 72nd and McKinley Streets.
Even the weatherman wasn’t fully fathoming what was to come that day.
The Blizzard of 1975.
The quick-hitting, long-lasting, city-crippling, death-dealing snowstorm, the granddaddy of them all, the reference point for comparing subsequent blizzards before and after.
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Snowfall of between 11 and 19 inches. Winds up to 60 mph. Plunging temperatures to below zero.
Omaha woke up on Jan. 10 to an uncertain weather forecast. No watches or warnings.
The smallish headline on the front page of the morning World-Herald was mundane — “Low Brings Rain, Snow” — with “predictions of up to 4 inches of snow for central and eastern Nebraska remained in effect today.”
But in the previous afternoon’s newspaper, NWS Omaha head James Zoller had said, “The situation is touchy.
“If the Colorado low moves northeast just right, heavy snow could be dumped in eastern Nebraska and Omaha. … (This) has been giving us forecasters fits since Wednesday afternoon. (It’s) a tricky one.”
No lie. The Colorado low pressure did move just right, into southeastern Kansas. As NWS lead forecaster Benny Gullach said later, “The worst place in the world for us, and I knew we were building to a major winter storm.”
What convinced him heavy snow was possible was the hourly weather report from Pratt, Kansas, a town halfway between Wichita and Dodge City. At 6 a.m., heavy snow.
An NWS staffer in Kansas City, Missouri, noticed the report and called Gullach. “It was right in the flowline for heavy snow for Omaha and Lincoln.”
The snow forecast and the conditions changed by the hour for Omaha, which would be in the middle of a storm that stretched from southern Kansas to Minnesota.
5 a.m.: One to three inches was expected.
6 a.m.: Light snow started. Temperature 36 degrees.
6:30 a.m.: Heavy snow warning, for more than 4 inches and near-blizzard conditions, issued.
8 a.m.: Snow, blowing snow in gusting winds. A special weather statement reiterated near-blizzard warning.
9 a.m.: Moderate to heavy snow.
10:15 a.m.: Blizzard warning, snow forecast increased to 8 inches, issued.
Noon: 5.4 inches of snow since midnight.
2 p.m.: Drifting to 10 feet.
3 p.m.: Snow began to abate.
5 p.m.: Snow, blowing snow, winds to 43 mph, wind chill 25 below.
6 p.m.: Snow on ground: 10 inches at Eppley Airfield, 9 at North Omaha (the NWS station).
3 a.m. Jan. 11: Snow on ground: 19 inches at Offutt Air Force Base, 13 for Omaha.
5 to 7 a.m.: Blizzard conditions ended. New snowfall: 12.1 inches. Lowest temperature: 4 degrees. Highest wind: 60 mph.
Schools were the first to be affected. In retrospect, a prank phone call to radio station KFAB spared Knutzen and OPS a fate worse than befell Phelps and District 66 — stranded students and teachers.
A KFAB reporter took a phone call from a man who said he was OPS assistant superintendent Eugene Skinner and that OPS was declaring a snow day.
“I turned on my radio and was shocked to hear that the public schools had been closed,” Knutzen said. The 7 a.m. error was corrected, then a decision was made 90 minutes later to call off classes. Not from snow, but the confusion from the hoax.
District 66 (and Millard) didn’t call off classes. Parents had dropped off their children on their way to work.
In the aftermath, Phelps said even a revised forecast of 4 to 6 inches of snow and some blowing was not enough to warrant closing schools. The district suspended classes at noon, busing students home, but did not announce the decision.
Thus 100 students and 81 staff members at its three junior highs spent the night away from home. Those at Westbrook and Valley View stayed at the schools. Those stuck at Arbor Heights were housed by neighborhood residents.See AlsoLatest snow timeline overnight into Monday across MarylandDC winter storm threats: Snow chances, arctic blast in 202562 million people under threat of major winter storm set to deliver season’s most significant blow yet | CNNThe Big Deal About The Cold And Storm Pattern For January 2025 - Just In Weather
OPS had no students or staff stranded at schools.
At Interim City Hall, a city snow emergency was declared at 9 a.m. An hour later, Mayor Ed Zorinsky asked businesses to close early and, for those downtown, in staggered shifts.
“Our fear is that if they don’t get home this afternoon, they may not be able to get there by evening,” the mayor said.
Too late for many.
Stalled and abandoned cars, upward of 10,000, turned major thoroughfares into parking lots that only induced more drifting. Very few vehicles were four- or front-wheel drive. The best defense was studded snow tires or tires with chains.
Ninety-nine percent of Omaha streets were deemed impassable late Friday evening as the winds strengthened. The city had pulled all rented snow removal equipment off the streets at 7 p.m. City plows were trying to keep Dodge and other major streets open. Ultimately, they, too were grounded until morning after visibility dropped to zero.
Dennis Tripp completed the remodeling job in Valley with his brother and father shortly after noon and left in their van for home about 12:45 p.m. They got as far as 186th Street, either on narrow four-lane West Dodge or narrow-two lane West Maple Road, before the van got stuck.
Unable to free the van, Dennis and brother Steven tried to walk for help. Gave up. Huddled in the van, they watched the gas tank run out. Built a fire in an empty paint can, burning two 8-foot 2x4s and lumber scraps, that lasted until 5 a.m.
Believing their survival depended on finding shelter, they tied pieces of carpet to their legs for insulation, took the paint can with the remaining embers and at 8 a.m. braved the winds and the 5-foot drifts.
They spotted a farmhouse about 300 feet away and began the trek. The father, Arnold, collapsed. The brothers carried him to the house’s porch, where the occupants welcomed the men.
Across Omaha, Friday night lodging for the stranded was catch-as-catch-can.
John Sorensen, the zookeeper, spent the night in the tiger’s den. Not figuratively.
Eighteen staffers crammed in the zoo’s administration building for the night. Sorensen found his sleeping corner too cold and uncomfortable.
He and his supervisor, Dale Becker, searched for better quarters at 4 a.m. How about the heated tiger den?
They shooed the two occupants from the rear of the den to the front (it was heated), then closed the door that separated them from the cats. They crawled to the rear, made beds in the straw and fell asleep.
“It wasn’t very comfortable but compared to what we had, it was very comfortable,” Sorensen said.
The Hilton Hotel at 16th and Dodge Streets packed them in, sleeping two to six in each of its nearly 500 rooms. There was sufficient food, except the place was running low on steak and lettuce.
The Mayor’s Office asked all public establishments — bars, restaurants, service stations, gas stations — to stay open all night as a haven for the strandeds. The Canopy Bar on Dodge between 15th and 16th Streets (and near the Hilton) was standing room only from office workers trapped downtown.
About 700 people spent the night at Westroads Mall. The Westroads Dinner Theater served 550 spaghetti dinners. Six West Theaters showed films in five theaters and kept the sixth dark for those wanting to sleep.
The Nebraska National Guard rescued about 400 motorists and took them to the armory at 69th and Mercy Road. Boys Town housed 100, many stuck on West Dodge.
Bitter cold greeted Saturday’s dawn. Eppley reopened at 11:30 a.m. after being shut for 26 hours.
The digging out began. With it, sightseers, to the dismay of Public Works Director Terrance Pesek.
Like on the 72nd Street strip south of Dodge, a massive parking lot since midday Friday. A large area was partially cleared by 3 p.m. after several hours of removing vehicles, only to immediately have motorists trying to drive through and getting stuck. Four hours later, the street was back to where it had been at 3 p.m.
Arlene Schlueter had made dinner in her Westgate neighborhood home and was relaxing when she experienced labor pains.
“How could we get to our car parked at the bottom of the hill? I couldn’t walk through that deep snow. The baby would only come sooner,” she said.
Thomas, her 13-year-old son, suggested taking the family’s toboggan. Wrapped in heavy quilts and clothing, she sat backward on the sled. Her husband, John, and Thomas pulled, a neighbor pushing, son Robert carrying her suitcase, the convoy made it to the car. And she made it to the hospital in time.
“Michael took only two hours from my first pain at home until he entered the world. But what a two hours,” she said.
Bangert and his associates at the weather service could have declared, “What a three days,” for that was how long they were snowbound.
A total of 20 men were trapped at the old Air Force radar site — nine weathermen, two working in the Federal Aviation Administration tower and nine in the Local 1140 hiring hall — where drifts approached 15 feet.
The Walter Hartle family and its two snowmobiles were the group’s “guardian angels” over the next few days until the weathermen and union men dug through a drift on two-lane 72nd Street on Sunday to clear the path home.
Bangert got into a public spat with new County Surveyor Lou Lamberty — the day of the storm was his first full day on the job — over snow removal and was invited to climb aboard a plow to see what the county crews were dealing with.
In the county, Nebraska 36 (Bennington and Pawnee Roads) and Nebraska 64 (West Maple Road) weren’t cleared until Sunday.
In town, snow removal crews entered residential areas Sunday night, opening bus routes first.
MAT bus service resumed on Monday, no fares charged. Mail delivery also resumed on Monday. Trash pickup followed on Tuesday, school re-openings on Wednesday.
Omaha gradually returned to normal. All streets were open to at least one-lane traffic on Thursday. The city snow emergency ended at 2 a.m. Jan. 18 — 185 hours after it was issued.
The Jan. 19 Sunday World-Herald included an eight-page keepsake section wrapping up the strongest blizzard still ever to hit Omaha. The newspaper didn’t miss publishing a day because of the storm.
Paper carriers Gail Rickards and Jeff Morris, both in neighborhoods south of downtown, made their afternoon deliveries in the teeth of the storm. Pressmen Ron Holman and Joe Cuevas walked to work from 72nd Street to help get the Sunday World-Herald out.
The newspaper held a readers’ contest for the best first-person story from the blizzard. John Sorensen, Dennis Tripp and Arlene Sorensen were among the finalists.
From the newspaper’s editorial that appeared in the special section:
Nature showed Man in his puny motor vehicles who was boss in the Blizzard in 1975 and we hope the show of power isn’t repeated for a long, long time.
But the crisis also brought out the best of people total strangers appeared out of swirling clouds of snow to help push stalled cars, homeowners and businesses opened their doors to stranded motorists and workers, and the milk of human kindness was heavily laden with cream.
Although snowed in, most Omahans had ample gas and electricity for their heating and lighting. The telephone provided a communications link. This was unlike Minnesota where there were power outages in many sections. Thus, with few exceptions, Midlands residents can be thankful for reliable utilities.
The area is now more than ready for that January thaw. May it come before Nature again picks our land for further snow depositing.
And may Public Works Director Terrance Pesek make no disparaging remarks about studded snow tires until at least July 1.
What’s stuck with me all these years: If there’s heavy snow falling in Pratt, Kansas, get to the store for milk and bread. A big one is coming.
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Blizzard of '75 by the numbers
When: Jan 10 and 11, 1975
Storm-related deaths: 57 across the Midwest, including 17 in Iowa and 14 in Nebraska
Abandoned vehicles: at least 10,000 in Omaha
Snowdrift depths: Up to 14 feet in Omaha
Snow depths: 11-16 inches in Omaha metro area; 10-19 inches across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.
Wind speed: 60 mph
Low temperature: 4 degrees in Omaha
Wind chill: 40 below zero
Source: Nebraskaland Magazine’s Weather and Climate of Nebraska; Weatherwise
“I called them because school officials take so long to make up their minds. I thought I'd do it for them.”
— the anonymous caller in explaining his posing as an Omaha school official for a hoax call-in to KFAB to cancel school
“It can't get any worse, can it?”
— Douglas County Surveyor Lou Lamberty, on his first full day on the job, with a responsibility for clearing county roads
“What do we do? We can't send him home?”
— bartender at the New Tower Motel in regard to a drunk patron during the peak of the storm
“Why do you people live here?”
— question asked by Francis McAnnena, an Irish native visiting Omaha during the storm
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