“Oh, the weather outside is frightful …” — from the song, “Let It Snow.”
Friday. Christmas Eve, 1982. The weather service in Denver correctly predicted a white Christmas, something that is uncommon, despite the Mile-High City’s chilly reputation. In fact, the odds are low at around 14% on average. The TV weather teams that morning all said to expect 6 inches to 8 inches of snow.
Man, were they wrong.
As I left the house for my 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift as a produce assistant manager, the blowing and drifting snowstorm compelled me to turn back after a few blocks and switch out my economy car for our 4x4 truck. I told my wife, who was five months pregnant with our first baby, to stay home from her job. No argument there.
It wasn’t your stereotypical Hallmark card Christmas snow. This was a blizzard.
No one knew it at the time, but the city would end up getting 24 inches of snow in a 24-hour period. When I arrived for work, the store was as busy as anyone expected from our newest flagship location. In fact, it was a trifecta of booming business factors: The day before Christmas, heading into the weekend and, of course, the storm. Any “snow rush” brought in far more traffic than usual. Also, stores were closed on Christmas Day, so, load up.
We used to say, “Yeah, John Q. Public can’t make it to work in a snowstorm, but they can sure make it to the grocery store.” We were slammed.
We didn’t have terms then for severe storms like Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse or Snowzilla, though these would have fit the bill that crazy Christmas Eve. On such days, the weather is the news. It even had a level of excitement for all of us in our early 20s. We’re thinking, “This is awesome. Maybe it’s a record snowfall!”
Our store manager, Mike Fitzgerald, was on the move around the store, making sure we had enough product, making sure we were keeping up with stocking and making sure everyone had enough hands on deck, even sending so-equipped people with four-wheel-drives into the abyss to pick up employees who couldn’t even make it out of their own driveways.
The not-so-muffled question among us was, that’s all well and fine, but how is everyone going to get home later tonight? And on Christmas Eve? The storm outside was raging. It was snowing hard, sideways in fact. Whiteout conditions. Whatever excitement it had to begin with soon wore off.
Brave road-plow crews were on the job but were soon overwhelmed.
As the afternoon wore on, our store was still crowded, but fewer made it inside to shop. Darkness soon fell and people (customers and employees) began to realize: There was no way that many were going home that night. I dragged out a few pallets and loaded them into the bed of my truck so I could have some traction when I left.
Anyone with a four-wheel-drive truck had a chance, however slim. I loaded my cab with a few fellow employees who lived along my way home. By the time I left the store, roads were a mess as the blizzard raged. My truck tires sank repeatedly but pushed on, fishtailing and straining to keep momentum.
Radio reports urged people to stay off the streets. Since the side streets were impassible with 3- and 4-foot drifts, the best I could do was let my employee passengers bail out as close to home as we dared. They all managed to get home safely.
Back at the store (and all the stores in the chain), hundreds of customers and employees had to hunker down for the night. Store managers and their crews were under orders from the main office to accommodate everyone stranded inside as comfortably as possible. Everyone could prepare and eat whatever they desired at no cost, even steak and lobster.
Nobody wanted to be stuck in a grocery store that night, no matter what the dining perks.
The storm subsided the next morning on Christmas Day. It was eerily quiet outside. The airport had shut down. No newspapers delivered that day. Cars were buried in 6-foot drifts. The slow dig-out began.
The then-record storm paralyzed the city. It took days for our trucks to resume deliveries. Stock was extremely limited. Employees were slow to return through the muck. The stores, of course, were slammed as customers walked, skied or snowshoed their way in, only to find slim pickings.
As for yours truly, I managed to make it home that night, although I eventually was buried in a drift not far from home, and it was very late. But at least I made it, which made it a memorable Christmas after all. Many people were not so lucky.
My big-hearted friend and produce pal Todd was kind enough to give a customer a ride home in his Jeep that Christmas Eve, which got stuck in the process. So, he and Todd trudged a few blocks and spent the night at the customer’s home. When Todd returned to his Jeep on Christmas Day, the vehicle was stripped.
Everyone remembered where they were that day. Everyone had similar stories of charity and heartache to share.
Still, there is still something to be said about a white Christmas. And now, every time I hear Bing Crosby’s classic song by the same name play on the radio each holiday season, I smile, recall the fantastic-awful-incredible 1982 blizzard and think to myself; Oh, Bing, be careful what you wish for. Ba, ba, ba, boom.
Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for nearly two decades.
