Operation Snowbound: Life Behind the Blizzards of 1949

The blizzards that devastated the West eventually ended when every farmer and rancher in need of bulldozer crews had received the required assistance. Life began to return to normal for the people who experienced the extreme hardships evident throughout that infamous winter, but the effects remained in the consciousness of the leaders who had to react to those challenges.

One reason the blizzards of 1949 devastated the West was because state and federal governments had no methodical approach to deal with natural disasters. They could not offer an organized response to national emergencies in which local, county, and state governments required assistance to save livestock and human residents.

After these blizzards, authorities began to implement changes to disaster response and fundamental changes appeared in the following decades. Citizens, soldiers, and federal contractors worked to end the ordeal of the blizzards, quickly opening routes throughout the region. State and federal road crews liberated many farmers and ranchers, who quickly went to grocery stores for the first time in weeks or months to restock their food shelves. Newspapers across the country reported when portions of the affected states were finally free to leave their isolated homes.

The folks who witnessed the blizzards of 1949 still remember them, and newspapers routinely commemorate the event on relevant anniversaries. In the end, however, the importance of the blizzard conditions as examined here are not the misery they inflicted on the populace, not the stories of heroism or heartbreak, but the snapshot in time the affair provides the reader today.

Dave Mills is from Maryland originally, but he left home to join the army. He spent ten years serving his country, and then ten years working in Corporate America. Dave earned his PhD in history from North Dakota State University, and he then taught for several years at a community college. Most recently, he spent five months in Russia on a Fulbright Fellowship, explaining American history to Russian undergraduate students. He now teaches military history at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Working with senior leaders of tomorrow's military gives him great joy, as does researching and writing on topics related to military history, the Cold War, and the Great Plains.