Ice Storm 1973 | SOTC

Forty Seven years ago this week, the Storm Of The Century hit Atlanta. The ice storm in January of 1973 was like none we had seen before or since. Snowjam ’82 was bad, the storm in March of ’93 has also been called the SOTC, but none can compare to 1973. We still talk about it today and remember the events vividly.

It was my senior year of high school. We were living in Gresham Park and to the best of my recollection we never lost power. We were lucky. The temperature dropped below zero. Transformers blew due to the extreme cold. Trees began to bend from the weight of ice, eventually snapping and taking power and phone lines down with them. But for kids in school fresh off of Christmas vacation, a week off due to the storm seemed like an extension of the holidays.

The roads iced over and driving was treacherous. I had a ’63 Volkswagen I had bought from a buddy at school for $75. That was back when a $75 VW could be both practical and dependable. The old ’63 was the famous VW seafoam green and had a left front fender that was unsanded and unpainted Bond-O. Like all ’63 VWs, its heater was non-functional, but I didn’t care. The little car ran and that was all that mattered. I let the air about halfway out of the back tires, put a concrete block in the cubby hole behind the back seat and, to my mothers chagrin and my father reminding me that I did not possess the intellectual capacity of a burro, cranked up the old 6-volt Seafoam Green Monster and headed up the hill on Rollingwood toward my friend Kerney’s house.

The power was out at Kerney’s, so his dad climbed the pole out in front of the house and with a pair of jumper cables managed to jump the power from the main line to the line going to the house. The cables stayed up there for months, until Georgia Power discovered them while doing routine maintenance. Kerney and I climbed in the Bug, backed out of the driveway and took off for a great adventure. We decided to head up Mary Lou Lane. The most fun was making right hand turns. I would punch the Bug about halfway through the turn, the car would make a three-sixty and we would continue on our way. After chugging about halfway up the hill on Mary Lou, the old VW couldn’t make it any further, began to spin his rear wheels and slowly at first, then picking up speed, slid backwards down the hill to the bottom before coming to rest with the rear wheel resting against the curb. Giggling and laughing, we headed back the other direction.

I spent the night at Kerney’s house that night. The next morning we rode over to my house and my father had softened his stance the parallels of my intellectual capacity and a burro’s. That was because he needed cigarettes. He gave me five dollars for two packs of Lucky Strikes and gas for the Bug. Kerney and I made it to Gresham Road and the Tenneco station was miraculously open. We bought the cigarettes, filled the Bug up and headed home. My father was happy and we were set up with gas for the rest of the week.

We took off again and picked up a few buddies. Emboldened, we decided to ride to Cedar Grove. The little car chugged along and as we passed a Georgia Power work crew on Bouldercrest Road, one on the men gave us the finger. We looked and laughed because, bundled up under the layer of clothing and the hard hat was a friend of ours who was a few years older and worked for Georgia Power. While were playing road warriors, he was getting paid double time. And we wondered why he owned a yellow and black ’70 Mach 1.

It wasn’t all fun and games, though. We made a couple of runs to the grocery store for my parents and Kerney’s. We picked up his little sister who spent the night with a friend and brought her home. We also made a cigarette run for his dad. So Kerney, the little ‘63 and me emerged the heroes.

Eventually the snow and ice melted. Power and phone lines were restored, life returned to normal and we all went back to school. My father talked me into letting him build a dune buggy out of the old Seafoam Beetle. Then he never let me drive it. Spring came and then graduation. We had to make up the days missed from the ice storm at the end of the school year. That’s one thing that kids never think about during snow days. We graduated on a Wednesday night and I had to be at work at eight o’clock the next morning. But the memories of the Ice Storm of ’73 remain to this day.

Driving in a winter storm is no fun now. I hear all the time how we Southerners don’t know how to drive in snow and ice. The storm of 2014 that crippled the city and made a national laughingstock out of Atlanta comes to mind. I was out there and it took seven hours, but I made it home. So, I must know a little something about driving in adverse conditions. Along the way that evening, the thought struck me that a great percentage of the Atlanta population is now made up of northern transplants. I figured that since they all knew how to negotiate the ice and the hills that they were all safely home. I never realized that many of us dumb old Southerners were left in the city. There sure were a lot of us. The weirdest part was the fact that a great number of the cars that were swerving, careening and abandoned on the side of the expressway had Ohio and Indiana tags on them.