It started as a typical Friday. On January 12, 1979, Chicagoans were already exhausted by a brutal winter that had dumped a foot of snow on the city just weeks prior. They didn't know the city was about to break. By the time the blizzard of 79 Chicago finished its 38-hour assault, the city wasn't just buried under 20.3 inches of fresh powder; it was paralyzed.
People died. Buses froze to the asphalt.
The snow didn't just block driveways; it ended a mayor’s career. Honestly, if you want to understand why Chicago politics looks the way it does today, you have to look at those three days in January. It’s a case study in how bad infrastructure meets bad optics to create a perfect political storm.
The Weekend the City Stopped Breathing
The National Weather Service didn't exactly scream "catastrophe" at first. They predicted a few inches. Then the sky opened up. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, the blizzard of 79 Chicago dumped nearly two feet of snow on top of the seven to ten inches already sitting on the ground from New Year's Eve.
Total snow depth? Nearly 30 inches.
Imagine trying to move a city of three million people through that. You can't. The wind was whipping at 35 miles per hour, creating drifts that reached the second-story windows of bungalows in Jefferson Park and Beverly. O’Hare International Airport—usually the pride of the city’s transit hub—shut down for 96 hours.
Thousands of travelers were stranded, sleeping on luggage carousels and cold linoleum floors. It was chaos.
But the real disaster was happening on the side streets. While the "L" trains tried to keep running, the tracks were freezing over. More importantly, the snow plows weren't coming. Mayor Michael Bilandic, the hand-picked successor to the legendary Richard J. Daley, promised the city was handling it. He was wrong. The city’s fleet of plows was aging, the salt was running low, and the strategy was basically nonexistent.
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Why the Blizzard of 79 Chicago Became a Political Execution
In Chicago, snow is a service delivery issue. If you don't plow, you don't win. Bilandic found this out the hard way.
Jane Byrne, a former city commissioner who had been fired by Bilandic, saw her opening. She didn't need a massive campaign budget; she just needed a camera and a pair of boots. While Bilandic sat in City Hall releasing tone-deaf statements about how well the cleanup was going, Byrne was out in the neighborhoods. She talked to people who hadn't seen a plow in four days. She talked to mothers who couldn't get milk because the delivery trucks were stuck three miles away.
The optics were horrific for the "City That Works."
The CTA made a fatal error: to keep the main lines running, they skipped stops in Black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. They literally bypassed the people who relied on public transit the most. This wasn't just a logistics failure; it was a perceived act of systemic negligence. The anger was visceral. You could feel it in the air, a cold, biting resentment that was sharper than the wind chill.
Then came the "Snow Tax" rumors and the botched garbage collection. For weeks after the blizzard of 79 Chicago, trash piled up in alleys because the trucks couldn't navigate the ruts. The city looked like a landfill covered in a white sheet.
The Numbers That Defined the Crisis
- 20.3 inches: The official snowfall at O'Hare during the event.
- $0: The amount of mercy the voters had for the incumbent.
- 5,000+: The number of cars abandoned on the Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways.
- -19 degrees: The wind chill that made shoveling a life-threatening chore for the elderly.
Misconceptions About the Cleanup
A lot of people think the city just didn't have enough plows. That’s not quite true. They had the equipment, but the bureaucracy was gridlocked. There’s a famous story—often debated by historians—about the city hiring private contractors who ended up just driving around with their blades up to collect hourly checks. Whether it was widespread or anecdotal, the perception was that the Machine was failing.
Bilandic didn't help himself. He compared the media's criticism to the crucifixion of Christ.
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Yes, he actually did that.
In a televised address, he looked tired and defensive. He lacked the "Old Man's" (Daley's) ability to project strength through a crisis. By the time the primary rolled around in February, the snow was still melting into dirty, grey slush. The voters remembered. Byrne pulled off the biggest upset in Chicago history, winning by some 16,000 votes.
She campaigned on the idea that the "Cabal" had failed the regular person. The blizzard of 79 Chicago was her best surrogate.
The Long-Term Lessons of the Storm
If you live in Chicago now, you see the legacy of '79 every time it snows. The city is obsessed with snow removal. We have a "Snow Tracker" website where you can watch the little icons of plows moving in real-time. That isn't just for convenience; it's a political insurance policy. No mayor wants to be the next Michael Bilandic.
We also learned about the "dibs" system. While it existed before, the 1979 storm codified it. When you spend six hours digging your car out of a two-foot drift, you feel a primal ownership over that patch of asphalt. Putting a lawn chair in the street to save your spot became a Chicago religion after 1979. It's technically illegal, but most mayors are too terrified of the '79 ghost to actually enforce the ban during a heavy winter.
Real-World Survival and Infrastructure Realities
If we had a storm of that magnitude today, things would be different, but not necessarily easy. Modern salt is more effective, and GPS-guided plows ensure better coverage. However, our reliance on "just-in-time" supply chains means a 96-hour shutdown of O'Hare would cause even more economic ripple effects than it did forty-plus years ago.
The blizzard of 79 Chicago taught us that the "Machine" isn't invincible. It showed that nature doesn't care about your political lineage.
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The infrastructure of the CTA was also forced to evolve. The 1979 crisis revealed that the 2000-series railcars had air intakes that sucked in fine snow, shorting out the motors. This led to a massive redesign of how Chicago transit handles winterization. We literally built better trains because the 1979 snow killed the old ones.
Practical Takeaways for Modern Winters
You can't control the weather, but you can control your response. If you're looking back at the 1979 disaster to prepare for the future, here is the reality of urban survival in a "Great Lakes" climate:
Prioritize Drainage and Salt Early
The reason 1979 was so bad wasn't just the snow; it was the ice layer underneath. If you don't clear the first three inches, the next twenty will fuse to the ground. In '79, they waited too long to hit the side streets, and by the time they got there, the snow was packed into "ice-crete."
Communication is a Utility
Bilandic’s failure was 50% plowing and 50% talking. In a crisis, people need accurate, humble information. If you're a business owner or a local leader, admit the scale of the problem. Don't tell people the "roads are clear" when they can see a Buick buried in a drift outside their window.
Community Resilience
The heroes of 1979 weren't the guys in City Hall. They were the neighbors with snowblowers who cleared three blocks of sidewalks. They were the people who checked on the seniors on the third floor. In a massive blizzard, the government will always be slow. Your neighbors are your first responders.
The blizzard of 79 Chicago remains the benchmark for "bad." Every time a local meteorologist mentions a "clipping system" or a "Lake Effect warning," the older generation looks at the sky and remembers the year the city stood still. It changed the transit, it changed the leadership, and it changed the very psychology of the city.
To prep for the next one, ensure your home has a three-day supply of essentials that don't require electricity to heat, keep a heavy-duty shovel (not plastic) in your trunk, and never, ever underestimate a low-pressure system coming off the Plains. History shows that in Chicago, the snow doesn't just melt; it leaves a permanent mark on the map.