Enjoy Blizzard!: The Storm That Changed America Constructed By Jim Murphy Listed As Softcover

was the most amazing, wrenching, incrediblepages I have ever listened to!

A three day freak snow storm from Virginia up to the Canadian border and Michigan to the east coast that brought EVERYTHING to a standstill.
Much of the story was about the effect on New York City and the immediate country side but that was not all,

Not just what happened during the storm, but the long term legislation and disaster practices that were voted into existence afterward were discussed,

The national weather service came into being as a direct result of the storm of,

This storm is one of the most well remembered and documented storms in history,

Everyone should hear or read this story! Fascinating! I saw a documentary on this historic event, but this book was better, fairly superficial, but interesting to consider the logistics of blizzard prep, survival, and aftermath in a world without labor laws, much machinery, or easy communication, This book is targeted at the YA market, so it isn't a super in depth history, Actually, that's one of the big pluses for me, Murphy seems to have covered everything I want to know amp he did in a way that made me feel it, He included a lot of personal accounts amp wrapped up with the effects that this storm had on our society,

We've had others that were bigger before amp since, but this one caused a lot of changes as it highlighted systems that had been outgrown by the population amp technology.
For instance, he tells of how a horse is electrocuted by downed wires amp the dangers to humans that they caused, The law requiring them to be buried was finally upheld, It had been in place for a few years, but was ignored amp no one really cared, Now everyone did.

The hardships suffered by all were incredible, but especially on the poor, Murphy highlights how tough the job market was amp does a great job making prices real, He did this with every point, brought it down into understandable terms that really made an impression, I think any kid fromon up maybe younger would get a lot out of this on their own, Can't recommend it highly enough for young or old,

Very nice gives a real feel for daily life in NYC in, and tells fascinating details of the storm, following the true experiences of real people documented in newspapers and journals, some who survived, and some who did not.
On March,, hurricaneforce winds and unrelenting snow began to bring the region of Virginia to Maine to its knees, During the next three days, the Great Blizzard raged out of control, devastating every community in its path, Through the eyes and words of survivors and victims alike, as well as the careful research for which Newbery Honor Award author Jim Murphy is known, listeners will experience one of the most devastating natural disasters in US history and understand why, from that day on, life in the United States was forever changed.
It would start as rain on Sunday and feet of snow greeted those that managed to open their doors on Wednesday, A quick look at the storm that inundated the New York City ofwith massive amounts of snow, Amounts that even today would likely bring the city to a standstill, The author uses personal accounts of some survivors that braved the storm mostly due to having an employer that believed that if they could make it to work, so could the employees.
One must recall that this was before the subways and people walked everywhere blocks and blocks and with the tropicalstorm force wind gusts, dropping temperatures and wind chill with consistent, nonstop blizzard conditions that dumped inches of accumulation every hour.
Even trains would get stuck in massive drifts and those that left the protection of a traincar may or may not have survived to shelter a mere mile in the distance.
People would collapse from the cold into a snowdrift and not be found until days later,

One positive aftermath was that all the wiring that clogged the area over the streets many poles collapsed in the winds, leaving dangerous sparks from live electrical wires all the wiring was to be placed underground.
Construction of the underground train/subway system was finally approved, Also, hundreds of staff were hired not only to clear snow but to clean the streets which resulted in the development of 'public works departments,

Short, quick read and Murphy works to keep his tale moving especially with so much information available about the damage done to the city and surrounding regions.


This book seems to have rave reviews, but I for one just thought it was okay, I'm always on the hunt for interesting nonfiction, and I usually find it in historical accounts, This was entertaining enough, and I wouldn't use a stronger adjective than that, I wasn't captivated or gripped by the account, perhaps in

part because it is nearly unfathomable to me to imagine snow drifts up to a secondstory window I have lived in the south most of my life and had a hard time wrapping my head around colossal snow mounds.
There was also the issue of characters we barely knew them: there were a few times he returned to tell of a character's fate, and I was surprised because I had completely forgotten about that person.
The tension didn't hold, apparently, Fascination, yes. Tension, no. It was a fast read, all in all, and a neat little tidbit of history to have under my belt, A young adult novel about the New York blizzard that devastated New York in the late's, I enjoyed it, though parts were harsh and described just how horrible it was for those who died during the storm, A great book for those who have read the Dear America books and want more information on historical disasters, It had been an unusually winter, so mild that Longfellow,
enjoying the warm sunshine, had just penned a poem
about dandelions, Two unusual weather patterns were about to combine and bring the East Coast to a standstill, For three days, beginning on March,, one of the greatest blizzards in recorded American history was about
to paralyze everything,

Murphy, a Newberry Award winner, has combined the personal accounts of several individuals of different ages and social positions to bring a sense of "being there" to his account.

What made the storm even more unusual was that after having pounded the Northeast, the storm reversed course and plastered the same area again, Snow removal became impossible trains became stuck for days, and soon
food was in short supply, prices rising commensurately
with demand, Shoveling was impossible, and soon tunnels needed to be dug to get anywhere, Sleighs could be seen moving down the street at a level with secondstory windows,
Different ethnic and class groups fared differently,
Some needed money so badly and working conditions were so demanding that they walked miles in the blizzard, risking life and limb, to get to work.


There were spectacular feats of bravery and extraordinary examples of stupidity, After the storm, huge cakes of ice had formed on the river, and some bright little fellow got the idea of using a ladder to bridge the distance from shore to one of the large ice floes.
He demonstrated how safe the
ice was and soon was making a mint by charging for the use of his ladder, Everything went well, with several hundred people gathering on the huge piece of ice, until the tide turned and the ice began to break up into small floes and float out to sea.
Many managed to scramble ashore, but, sure enough, some refused to leave at the first signs of breakup, and they became stranded on increasingly small pieces.
Finally, only one man, dressed quite nattily, remained stranded until a tug pushed its way through the ice to rescue him, The blizzard ofkilled somepeople, and this does not include those who died from heart attacks or ancillary causes, The storm
changed the way the government viewed snow,

The economic hardship and losses were so substantial
that cities realized they could no longer afford to ignore snow removal, Even though,shovelers had been hired to clear streets, the task was haphazard at best, Electric lines were another problem, They had been strung on overhead poles
by numerous private utilities, Visions of live wires
snapping on mounds of snow and an electrocuted lineman hanging from a wire with blue flames coming from his mouth left indelible impressions on both citizens and politicians.
Soon laws were passed requiring that wires be moved underground,

The Signal Corps, which had previously been given responsibility for weather reports, had its mandate given to a new agency, the Weather Bureau, which was also charged with
learning about what causes storms in order to better predict them.
It remained a difficult task, A hurricane in Texas killed,several years later, despite predictions, Nature or God if you prefer to believe She actually pays attention to such things remains impossible to predict with complete accuracy, Storms, like life, remain
random and mysterious,

This is wonderful narrative history, seen through the eyes of numerous individuals, One gets a real sense for the ambiance of the time, This is a fascinating account of the Great Blizzard ofwhich hit New England and completely shut down New York City and many other places, Stories of survivors, and some who didn't survive, fill the pages along with photographs and drawings, This was quite a storm and because of it many things changed, I got rather chilly reading about all the snow and the howling winds, Super interesting look at the major blizzard of Marchthat slammed the eastern seaboard, Murphy does a great job sharing facts interspersed with the narratives of a number of different people impacted by the storm, Great narrative nonfiction choice for middle schoolers, Brr! Reading this made me cold! sitelinkBlizzard: The Storm That Changed America is a wellwritten account of the blizzard that struck the East Coast in March of.
sitelinkJim Murphy used newspaper articles, books, letters, and autobiographies written by survivors as sources for much of his information, I didn't find it quite as intriguing as sitelinkThe Great Fire or sitelinkAn American Plague, but still felt it was well worth reading, I was very interested to read about the changes that happened because of the blizzard, such as wires being moved underground and cities taking responsibility for snow removal.
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