DS> In 1982 The temperature at O'Hare Airport in Chicago IL plunged to 
 DS> an all-time record of 26 degrees below zero, and high winds drove 
 DS> the wind chill reading to 77 degrees below zero.  The temperature 
 DS> in Downtown Chicago reached 23 degrees below zero.  A week later, 
 DS> a second arctic surge sent the temperature plunging back down to
 DS> 25 degrees below zero.

 ML> i remember this... i was in Rantoul about an hour south of Chicago
 ML> when i was  in the USAF at ICBM school... my young wife, first son and
 ML> i lived in a small  second floor apartment... we got snowed in that
 ML> weekend because the drift came  up and covered our doorway... the worst

 NB> How dramatic... and probably more than a bit scary... 

we didn't even know until we tried to go out a few days later... no way to
open the door so instead we made more tacos and drank more beer ;)

 ML> part was that 4 or 5 of my buddies from  the base had also come out for
 ML> an evening of TV, cards amd drinking... it took  a week for us to get
 ML> out... not fun at all... 

 NB> Apparently roads were pretty nasty too then...  with 5 or 6 to dig
 NB> out, that part couldn't have been too bad... ;0  Did your
 NB> commanding officers understand...?  

they didn't have much choice ;)

but our place was right beside the base, too... at one point, we couldn't even
see the base there was so much snow... i definitely know what a whiteout is
from that experiance... we were very glad that the electric stayed on as the
place was all electric... no gas or any other form of heat was available to
us... at least we had plenty of food... the guys had brought about 10 pounds
of hamburger and all the fixin's for tacos and burritos... that was when i
invented breakfast burritos... heat some taco meat and scramble some eggs into
it... spoon it all into a tortilla and munch away... nothing like today's
"schtuff" called a breakfast taco... yuck and double yuck...

)\/(ark

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 * Origin:  (1:3634/12.42)