It’s described as one of the fiercest storms ever to strike the Maritimes and it struck Saint John 42 years ago today.
It was on February 2, 1976 that what is known as the Groundhog Day Gale raged on the Port City with winds of over 180 kilometres an hour which created waves of 12 meters.
Retired broadcaster Donnie Robertson was 27 years old at the time and on the air at CFBC during the infamous storm, the only station to remain on the air.
“There was no warning. The winds began to pick up as I recall around 9:30, 10, and then by 11 or noontime it was unbelieveable,” says Robertson.
He says they stopped playing music entirely and became a message centre for the police and the fire department and for anyone that needed a generator.
“We were on auxiliary power but we were sort of the life breath to the community at that time,” says Robertson.
Susan Taylor of Saint John Energy tells CHSJ News she had only been with the utility for five or six years at the time of the storm.
“When I went back to work the next day, nothing was normal,” says Taylor. “The line crews we virtually didn’t see for days because they never really came in.”
Taylor says she was without power for three days and she didn’t see her husband who was a police officer at the time for something like five days.
This storm is included among the federal department of environment’s top weather events of the 20th century.