24th Anniversary of the Blizzard of '97

Sometimes it seems like it just happened. 

I had come home for the weekend from Seminary College in NW Missouri area. 

Saturday I go with my brother to a bar and grill to watch the Nebraska at Kansas game.  Amazed at all the rain happening in Kansas, and if I remember correctly there was even a weather delay. 

As rainy as it was in Kansas, I remember it being blustery and dry in Omaha.   Anyway, games done and leaving the bar and grill and light flurries.  I remember thinking that hopefully no snow overnight. My brother says, this won't amount to anything. 

The next day at around 11AM my Dad explains there is an outage, and "the world has fallen around us".  I open the curtains in my room for light and see all the snow.  The next hour or so, I'm in my dad's 4 wheel drive and checking out downed trees and power lines.  

I wasn't able to head back out of Omaha till Wednesday, and there were other people who were like, "where were you?"

The following weekend watching the Nebraska at Missouri game with a group of guys. 

 
I was at that game. Took us hours to get back to Lincoln...and then I-80 was closed westbound. We drove county roads all the way back to the Tri Cities.

 
My inlaws drove from Joplin Mo to Hastings to watch my son play his last home football game. My father in law about froze at the game and since he never played any sports he was ready to leave by half time. The game finally ended but the next morning we were greeted by snow and wind. They were finally able to leave on tuesday and stated they will only come visit in the summer in the future.

 
I was a senior at UNL at the time.  I'm pretty sure I had stayed that Saturday night at my girlfriend's place, but managed to get home to my house in T-Town.  T-Town had these giant, old trees lining the streets and houses, and I remember how there were fallen branches all over the place.  It wasn't the snow that made it hard to drive around the city, it was all of the fallen tree branches in the street.  Our house may have lost power on Sunday, but we were lucky that we didn't lose it very long.  I remember seeing the national guard coming to Lincoln to clear the city of all the tree branches that had fallen.  It was great that we had classes canceled for that week, but they still played the game against OU on Saturday.

 
 I was living here in Des Moines, went to a bar to watch the game as local cable at the time didn't carry FSN.  Woke up the next morning to all hell breaking loose, never did lose power.

 
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