Ice upon ice pic tells chilly tale of York County’s 1996 blizzard
York Daily Record/Sunday News photographer Paul Kuehnel captured this award-winning photo of ice upon ice at Long Level along the Susquehanna River in the blizzard of 1996. That blizzard hit on Jan. 8, 1996, and it dropped 30 to 36 inches of snow. Businesses closed for a week. Municipalities exhausted their annual snow removal budgets in five days. (See additional photo below). Background posts: Susquehanna bridge makeover flowing along, Doctor made house calls in blizzards and Newspaper Web site introduced in blizzard.
“I remember opening my front door of our home and only seeing a couple inches of our antenna of our car.”
That’s how West Manchester Township’s Gary Huber described one of the York County blizzards of the 1990s.
“I also remember no one was supposed to be on the street, because everything was shut down by the mayor. We, the maintenance department of York City schools, were asked to report to work the best way we could. Roads were hardly open, schools were closed for a week, which is about how long it took us to clear all the pavement,” he said.
This discussion on snow and ice started when Jim Buckner shared slides of a major Susquehanna River ice breakup in 1959, and images found their way into the York Town Square post: For years, folks have eyed amazing, destructive Susquehanna River ice jams. …
And the county has seen its share of snow and ice since. Indeed, plenty of local residents provided poignant memories of two blizzards of the past 15 years. These memories can be found via: Readers tell about those blizzards of 1993, 1996
All these words, and Paul Kuehnel told the best story with his “Ice upon Ice” photo.
Did you know?:
The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge supports line up with the bridgeless piers of the older bridges to their north. That was no accident. Engineers designed the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge that way to allow house-sized chunks of ice to pass through.
Also:
York County’s ‘uncommon,’ deadly snowfall of 1772: ‘The poor animals struck through’
Check out these stories and photographs from bad weather events in York County’s past
