A look back at Chicago's Groundhog Day blizzard, 15 years later
The groundhogs didn't all agree on the prospect of a protracted winter this Groundhog Day — Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania and Staten Island Chuck in New York both saw their shadows and thus predicted six more weeks of winter, while Woodstock Willie in Illinois did not see his shadow and forecasted an early spring.
But on Groundhog Day 15 years ago in Chicago, no one was thinking much about what the weather would be like in six weeks — and the ceremony where Woodstock Willie casts his prognostication couldn't even be held. This did not happen any other year, not even during the height of the pandemic in 2021.
Why? The winter weather happening that day took precedence over everything. Specifically, Chicago experienced the third-worst blizzard the city has ever seen.
The snow actually began on Monday, Jan. 31, 2011, and didn't let up for 40 hours. But it was on Wednesday, Feb. 2, that the snow reached its highest intensity, hence why the snowstorm is known as the Groundhog Day Blizzard.
The blizzard dumped 21.2 inches all told at O'Hare International Airport.
That figure is outranked only by the blizzard of Jan. 26-27, 1967, which dumped 23.0 inches, and the blizzard of Jan. 1-3, 1999, which dumped 21.6.
Even the blizzard of Jan. 13-14, 1979 — which is credited for ousting Mayor Michael Bilandic from office due to complaints about the city's response — fell short of the 2011 blizzard, with 20.3 inches, albeit on top of 7 to 10 inches already on the ground from an earlier storm.
The blizzard of '99 was relatively easier, as it happened during the New Year's holiday weekend and thus didn't disrupt a throng of weekday commuters during the evening rush — even though what is now called DuSable Lake Shore had to be shut down for the first time in history. The Groundhog Day blizzard a dozen years later very much disrupted a lot of traffic.
Then-soon-to-retire Mayor Richard M. Daley warned people to be cautious on the roads during the Tuesday afternoon rush.
"We want to make it clear that our first priority is always public safety." Daley said that Tuesday afternoon. He urged Chicagoans to "exercise common sense during the storm" by staying indoors unless absolutely necessary and driving carefully when on the road.
DuSable Lake Shore Drive was moving smoothly as the evening rush began that Tuesday. But conditions started to deteriorate, and accidents started to pileup — three of them between 7:15 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., of which one involved a Chicago Transit Authority bus. There were two more accidents just south of North Avenue right after that.
The accidents caused cars and buses to back up, and as the snow piled up, vehicles became immobilized and off-ramps became impassable. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 7:58 p.m., and fire and police personnel worked to move as many cars as possible off the highway and remove people who could not get out on their own.
Some people ended up getting stranded for up to 12 hours before they were rescued. Some frustrated drivers simply got out of their vehicles and abandoned them in the middle of the Drive.
Raymond Orozco, chief of staff to then-soon-to-retire Mayor Richard M. Daley, said first responders tried to get to stranded motorists as quickly as possible. But winds of 60 to 70 mph and snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour made that extremely difficult.
Evanston attorney Craig Roeder says he got on the Drive at 6 p.m. Feb. 1 and headed north. He says he crept and crawled until just south of Fullerton Parkway, when traffic ground to a halt around 9:30 p.m.
And there he sat, in whiteout conditions for six hours, until 3:20 a.m., when WBBM Newsradio 780's David Roe was interviewing him on the phone.
"There are some emergency people now coming with flashlights between the cars," Roeder said. "What we had been hearing is that they were taking people out in fire trucks because the buses couldn't get through, so it looks like this could be our rescue here."
Jim Glonke said at the time that he was stranded near North Avenue for 11 hours. He told CBS News Chicago he left his office in Chinatown in the late afternoon on Tuesday, Feb. 1, and it was backed up. He arrived at North Avenue around 7 p.m. that evening, and traffic stopped completely for an hour or two. Glonke was told a jackknifed bus was to blame.
Meanwhile, a CTA bus driver told reporter Vince Gerasole that he had been stranded on Lake Shore Drive since 5:40 p.m. Tuesday. Feb. 1. That was at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 2.
The city ended up being sharply criticized for its response to the emergency on the Drive. On the one hand, they wanted to get people off the roadway, but on the other hand, they wanted them to remain in their cars so plows could attack the snow buildup.
The Fire Department set up a mobile command center along North Lake Shore Drive, and came to each vehicle to check on people with water and granola bars. Windshield wipers were left up for cars that were empty.
As for those who were rescued, 185 were taken to St. Joseph Hospital for cold exposure, and were given dry socks, blankets, slippers, and towels. Others were taken to warming centers or placed on warming buses.
Around 500 cars ended up stranded on DuSable Lake Shore Drive altogether during the blizzard. The drive was closed for 33 hours.
Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools were canceled that Wednesday for the first time since the Blizzard of '99. The Cook County Jail was placed on lockdown and partially lost power, and tens of thousands of other ComEd customers lost power too.
O'Hare and Midway international airports had to shut down. Metra canceled trains and had to shut down entire lines. On the CTA Red Line, frozen switches halted trains right in the middle of the blizzard on Tuesday night. I-80 also had to close in the south and southwest suburbs, and other expressways around the area were reduced to one lane. All roads were closed in Lake County, Illinois, and all roads were left nearly impassable in McHenry counties. Kane and Will counties enacted travel bans.
In many neighborhoods of Chicago, the scene was surreal early that Groundhog Day morning. CBS News Chicago's Dorothy Tucker was only about 25 feet from her camera along Cornell Avenue between 47th and 48th streets in the Kenwood neighborhood, but was nearly invisible. Her camera crew had planned to meet her at a nearby hotel, but ended up snowed in on the street.
The city's Department of Buildings said at the time that the roofs blew off at least two buildings — including a part of Wrigley Field, where a panel on the roof above the press box was damaged by extreme winds.
On the Near West Side, the historic First Baptist Congregational Church at 1613 W. Washington Blvd. sustained more than $3 million in damage during the storm when one of its stone towers toppled.
But in the face of adversity came neighborly spirit in some parts of the area. In the 3800 block of North Hamilton Avenue in Chicago's North Center neighborhood, residents armed with a couple of snow blowers and a lot of shovels cleared off the block before city crews arrived.
It all started around 11 a.m. that Groundhog Day. Eventually, about 25 people dug in, and dug out. As the adults worked, the kids dove into the drifts, building igloos and tunnels. Neighbor Vicki McCall kept the work crew happy with cookies for everyone.
By 5 p.m., the street was clear. The city plows did not arrive to the block until 11:30 p.m. Thursday night.
Blizzard inspires a new "Lake Shore Drive" song
The blizzard inspired the late songwriter Skip Haynes to write a new version of the classic pop song "Lake Shore Drive," released in 1972 by Haynes' group Aliotta, Haynes, Jeremiah.
The new song was called "Snowed on LSD." It featured new lyrics set to the accompaniment of the original song, with its familiar piano and fiddle.
The original "Lake Shore Drive" song referenced "concrete mountains rearing up" and "water on the driving side," and "pretty blue lights along the way" — which some people think referred to police lights, while others think referred to the mercury-vapor streetlamps that lined the Drive back in those days, and others still think referred to the lights on reversible lane barriers used at the time.
But nobody was thinking about pretty blue lights during that blizzard, when the whiteout of the snow would probably have made them invisible anyway:
"Thought that I would make it, but oh boy was I wrong.
I'm sitting here on Lake Shore Drive, singing this sad song.
I'm stuck in Lake Shore Drive, 'til a snowplow comes along.
There ain't no road just like it, anywhere to me.
When I took Lake Shore Drive, should have brought my skis.
I'm stuck here on Lake Shore Drive, trying not to freeze."
Meanwhile at a Dominick's store on Green Bay Road in Evanston, they were singing, "Yes! We Have No Bananas!" WBBM Newsradio 780 producer Helen Marshall discovered that the store was completely out of bananas — due to what a store service desk representative said were the effects of the blizzard.
Many shoppers stocked up on various produce items before the blizzard hit on Feb. 1, and no new deliveries of bananas had arrived even by Thursday, Feb. 3, when the blizzard was over. There were similar scenes at other area grocery stores — at a Jewel-Osco in Lakeview produce shelves were nearly empty as shoppers rushed to stock up before the blizzard.
Report on lessons of blizzard casts no blame
In June 2011 — by which time Rahm Emanuel had succeeded Richard M. Daley in the Mayor's office, the city outlined ways emergency officials could avoid another blizzard-related shutdown of DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
A 12-page report, recommended the use of radio stations to keep drivers informed and making median cuts so drivers could escape during emergencies, but emphasized that such conditions could not have been anticipated and no one was to blame.
Asked if anyone should be "taken to the woodshed" for the complications on Lake Shore Drive, then-Office of Emergency Management and Communications Director Gary Schenkel replied, "Absolutely not."
No motorists were injured as they waited hours to be taken off the Drive, and Chicago generally received high marks for the way it kept other major arteries open during the snowfall.
After the Lake Shore Drive fiasco during the blizzard, then-Mayor Daley went underground and let his department heads take the heat. Daley reportedly was so angry about the Lake Shore Drive fiasco he needed a day to cool off.
In the time since the Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011, the biggest snowstorm Chicago has seen came on Feb. 1-2, 2015, with 19.3 inches. Mayor Emanuel called that blizzard "historic," but while it caused plenty of disruptions, DuSable Lake Shore Drive did not have to close.