Blizzard 1969-1970

This morning in 1969 was negative 22 degrees in Albany and the start of the 1969 blizzard in Albany. All traffic would be banned on Albany city streets until New Year’s Day, state government closed down for five days.

An exasperated Erastus Corning would tell a reporter asking for a time line on Albany snow removal: “If God put it here, God will take it away”. It wouldn’t be until the third week of January 1970 that all Albany streets would be free of snow. The city would spend over $2 million in 1969 dollars on snow removal for this one storm, which was bonded and paid off by taxpayers through the early 1980s.