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The week the state stood still: Feb. 6-13, 1978
A look back at the storm, first published in a special supplement to The Providence Sunday Journal, March 19, 1978.

By RON WINSLOW
Journal-Bulletin staff writer

EVERETTE MEDEIROS SCANNED the weather map just after 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, 1978, noting with interest the location of three air masses indicated with a letter L. Medeiros, a forecaster for the National Weather Service at Green Airport in Warwick, traced over the Ls in bright red ink.

One of them was over western Pennsylvania. It was snowing there. A second was in northern Georgia. And the third, still weakly defined, was just developing off Cape Hatteras, N.C., the birthplace of so many of New England's northeasters.

Out over the land and the ocean, these three systems were moving separately, like uncoordinated battalions of a poorly led army. But Medeiros knew from computer calculations of air movements around the lows and over the eastern half of the country that the lack of coordination was deceiving. The separate storm systems were actually maneuvering into position, preparing for an assault. The target was the southeastern coast of New England.

"It's going to be near-blizzard conditions," Medeiros predicted. "It will be worse than the last storm."

For a meteorologist following the whims of New England weather, the words were strong. The last storm, on Jan. 20, had dumped 16 inches of snow on the area, paralyzing the state and prompting Governor J. Joseph Garrahy to declare a state of emergency in Rhode Island. He had called out the National Guard. Thus, a "worse" storm would not be a routine snowfall. The accumulation, Medeiros believed, would be measured not in inches, but in feet. He figured the snow would begin by midnight.

The weather service had been keeping its eye on the storm for more than 24 hours, and at 5 a.m. Sunday had issued a winter storm watch. By midafternoon, the advisory had been upgraded to a heavy snow watch; more than six inches were expected, enough in itself to tie up the state for a day or so.

As a result, at 6 p.m. Santo Amato, head of the state civil preparedness agency, alerted Civil Defense offices around the state. Highway garage foremen went to work to check salt and sand supplies and load trucks in preparation for the storm. At the city garage in Providence, a fleet of 11 snowplows was in working order for the city's 421 miles of streets. They had been repaired since the previous storm, when all of the city-owned trucks had broken down.

The storm was slower to develop than Medeiros had predicted. By late Sunday evening, he revised his forecast: snow would be falling by daybreak. But he did not back off his strong statement on the storm's severity.

THOSE WHO FOLLOWED weather forecasts closely on Sunday woke up Monday morning to cloudy skies and bare ground. Monday morning's newspaper said snow should have begun by 4 a.m. Weather reports on local radio stations were confused.

Governor Garrahy, who had wondered the night before whether he would have to cancel a trip to Newport in the morning to visit officials on Aquidneck Island, shrugged off the storm. It had gone out to sea, he thought, just like so many others the weathermen have forecast.

It was a classic and typical reaction. Unlike the cold blizzards of the Midwest, New England's winter storms are fueled by warm air from the south, giving each one a warm and a cold side. A difference of a few miles in the storm's track means the difference between rain and snow, especially for south coastal areas. A difference of 50 miles sometimes is the difference between a storm and no storm at all. The air currents that carry these storms are finicky, and forecasts are not always right.

Thus, despite the threat of the storm, Monday morning became the beginning of just another week. Commuters headed for the highways, schoolchildren went to bus stops and Governor Garrahy and a busload of his department heads went to Newport.

But at the National Weather Service office, Richard B. Shenot, the meterologist in charge, knew that except for the timing, his forecast was right. Near-blizzard conditions were on the way.

By mid-morning, the picture drawn by the movement of three low-pressure areas was in focus. The staff, who had brought two cots into the office the day before, sent out for extra coffee and frozen dinners. Shenot's 11 a.m. forecast predicted 8 to 16 inches of snow. It was already snowing.

THE FIRST SNOWFLAKES in Providence fluttered to the ground about 10 o'clock in the morning. By 10:30, the snow was heavy and blowing hard. There was almost no teasing buildup. The storm seemed to have arrived full force. By 11 a.m., some sand and salt trucks moved onto highways around the state.

Shenot started getting telephone calls from businessmen and school superintendents.

"How much snow will be on the streets when schools close?" they asked.

Shenot's best guess was four to five inches.

For some, the prediction and the severity of the storm itself were enough. They decided to close school early. Other superintendents, however, set six inches as a cutoff.

It was during the lunch hour that people in Providence began to understand it was no ordinary snowstorm. By noon, the snow was accumulating quickly. Richard Thompson of Westport, Mass., who was at the Providence Gas Co. in downtown Providence, was surprised at the intensity of the snow.

Thompson, superintendent of supply for the gas company, returned to his office on Allens Avenue and had chains put on his snow tires. Other businessmen returned to their offices and made plans to close down and release their employees.

By 1 p.m., the snow was drifting on streets and highways throughout the region. Winds were blowing at more than 40 miles an hour. Schools around the state began closing. Buses arrived early to pick up students. Green Airport shut down at 1:30. Bonanza Bus Lines canceled trips to Boston.

At 2 p.m., state and city offices closed. Downtown shops and offices were close behind. More than 60,000 people poured into the streets almost simultaneously. They headed for cars and buses to escape.

They were fleeing not an advancing storm, but a storm that had already hit. They walked out into a wind-whipped snow that cut into their faces, stung their eyes and drove into their ears. Gusts of wind took their breath away, forcing them to turn their backs against it.

And the temperature dropped below freezing. When the snow started, the temperature was just above 32 degrees. The first flakes melted, leaving a thin film of water and slush as they hit the pavement of city streets. Now, a coating of ice formed on road surfaces and was buffed to a glaze in the wind-blown snow. Although just an inch or two had accumulated, travel -- both on foot and on wheels -- was difficult.

Commuters flocked to bus stops. Some buses arrived, took on passengers, and then went nowhere. Others arrived already full. Some never arrived at all.

Hundreds of cars appeared on city streets. Desperate drivers fought for position.

At first, the traffic jams were isolated. Cars without snow tires trying to climb hills at the lower end of Smith Street and at Randall Square swerved uncontrollable as spinning tires whined on icy pavement. On South Water Street and Dyer Street, cars quickly filled in the routes to the Route 195 entrance ramps. Kennedy Plaza and nearby Memorial Square, the central circulators of downtown traffic, were clogged.

Gradually, the small pockets of congested cars, trucks and buses backed up against other pockets and the jam grew. City traffic slowly bogged down. Traffic backed up on the highways as well.

AT 2 P.M., GARRAHY left Newport in his car. Several of his department heads left in a bus. The governor expected a 55-minute ride over the Newport Bridge and up the western side of Narragansett Bay to the State House. But snow slowed travelers, and he too became mired in traffic where cars were stalled, unable to get up the hill on Route 138 in North Kingstown, just over the Jamestown Bridge.

Sgt. John Brosco fought his way through the snow along Route 195 in East Providence shortly after 3 p.m., heading for his office at the Cranston Street Armory in Providence. The Army National Guardsman was still thinking about the snarl on the Mount Hope Bridge about an hour before, when he had come to a stop at the crest of the bridge, 109 feet about Mount Hope Bay. The wind, approaching 60 miles an hour, had lifted his car on its springs, and he had been certain he was going to be thrown into the water below. He had never been so scared.

Brosco was returning from a recruiting detail in Newport, and now he was glad he was going into Providence, not leaving it. The eastbound lane of Route 195 was jammed with cars, buses and trucks. Some had slid into guardrails, stalled on hills and skidded on the icy George Washington Bridge. As he neared the Route 95 interchange, he could see cars backed up on entrance ramps.

The city was a mess, he thought. He made it onto Route 95 and got off at the Downtown exit, where he battled hundreds of other cars on city streets. It was 4 p.m. before he reached his office. He told men who had not yet left for home to stay right where they were.

At 4:30, Richard Thompson left his office at the gas company on Allens Avenue. He knew the roads were bad, but with chains on his tires, he figured he could chew up the snow and make it home to Westport, 25 miles away.

He ran into a traffic jam as soon as he left his parking lot. But cars above him on Route 95 northbound seemed to be moving. The jam must be in the city, he thought. Through a series of twists and turns around stalled cars he finally made it to an entrance ramp to 95 and headed slowly toward 195.

At 5 p.m., Governor Garrahy made it to his home in the Elmhurst section of Providence. He had detoured twice en route to Providence to get there, and the streets of the city were so clogged, he couldn't make it to the State House.

On Routes 95, 195 and 146, cars were inching to a halt. Two tractor-trailers had jackknifed on 146 near th Mineral Spring Avenue exit. Traffic was not moving.

Finally, cars on the Route 95-195 interchange, where traffic from north and south folds into 195 East, slithered to a halt.

By 5 p.m., virtually every car and truck in Providence was stopped. The snow drifted around the vehicles. Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. ordered the city shut down. He told everyone - no matter what his business - to stay out. No one could get in anyway, and if anyone could, no policeman could get to him to make him leave.

"I witnessed it first-hand," he said. "Cars are stranded all over Route 95. Rhode Island is literally at a standstill."

Even then, however, he did not comprehend the magnitude of the standstill, nor the extent of the emergency Rhode Island faced.

THE WIND BLEW so hard it snowed sideways. It whipped snow into drifts and flung it back into the air. For those trying to walk in it, everything was a flash of white. And it was piling up fast. By 6 p.m., six inches were on the ground. At 7 p.m., there were nine inches. By 8, there was a foot. At 8:30, the weather service classified it officially as a blizzard.

On the south coast, the wind approached hurricane force and a new-moon high tide around 7 o'clock sent waves thundering over the sea wall into Narragansett, flooding the downtown area with four feet of water. Six persons were stranded until police could reach them.

Farther west along the Charlestown shore, the huge waves swept one summer cottage out to sea and dragged another one, foundation and all, toward the water's edge.

For all the force of the wind and waves, the shoreline residents were lucky. The strongest part of the storm was out of the northeast, and nearly all of the state's beaches facing northeast are sheltered in Narragansett Bay. Farther north, along the Massachusetts coast, the huge waves washed whole neighborhoods into the ocean and crushed businesses and landmarks.

RICHARD THOMPSON inched slowly to a halt on Route 195 east, just barely off the entrance ramp from Route 95. It was a bad tie-up, he knew, since it was snowing so hard. But he had been in jams before on the highway, and they always had worked themselves out eventually.

As a gas company official, he has to be able to get around in bad weather. In his car he keeps a small travel bag with a light thermal jacket, boots and a hard-hat liner that looks like an old aviator's helmet. It fits snugly over his ears.

He also has a two-way radio in his car. At 8 p.m., he radioed his office to have a man deliver a message to his wife in Westport. He was still on the highway, but okay. He would be home when he got there. He was prepared to sit it out.

Some people gave up. From the highway, they started hiking into Providence, looking for a hotel room or some other place to spend the night.

A few others, however, were not so lucky. About 6 p.m., Manuel Silva, 60, of 62 East Transit St., Providence, suffered a heart attack and died while stalled in a jam at Brook and Wickenden Streets in Fox Point. Four police cars managed to get to the intersection, but could do nothing.

Within a couple of hours, M/Sgt. Anthony Velucci of the Rhode Island Army National Guard was near the intersection in a four-wheel-drive truck. He was the only thing moving in the area and his assignment was to help those stranded by the snow get to shelters.

But the police wanted to get the man's body to a protected place and out of sight. They asked him to take it to the police station, where a temporary morgue would be set up.

In the darkness and blowing snow, there was little time for ceremony. Velucci and the policemen placed the body in the back of the truck as delicately as they could. Then, with wheels spinning and sliding in hard ruts of snow, Velucci headed for the police station. He felt a lump in his stomach.

"Picking up a dead person was particularly ticklish," he said later. "I could look at him like he was my father."

THE PROVIDENCE POLICE STATION was one of the first places the storm's refugees went for help. By 7:30, several dozen persons who had abandoned cars on city streets or had given up waiting for buses had congregated there.

Among them were Karen LaMorge, a pharmacist at Women and Infants Hospital, and Kathy Bouvier, a nurse at Roger Williams General Hospital. Both had become stranded on their way to work.

Within a half-hour of their arrival, two detectives struggled into the cellblock carrying George Milkaitis, a 58-year-old Pawtucket man who had collapsed on Broadway near the station.

"Any doctors in here?" someone yelled.

LaMorge and Bouvier offered to help. Three men from Ladder 1 in the fire station on the other side of the building were called. Police called a rescue. The makeshift first-aid team bent over the victim. One of them pumped on his chest.

"One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand . . ." One member of the team counted off the cadence. With each count another pumped the victim's heart. A tube was inserted into his throat to get air to his lungs. The technique is known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and it is strictly first aid. The man was unconscious. He had to get to a hospital.

"Why isn't a rescue here?" one of the men cried.

"He's go no signs at all," another said a moment later.

Milkaitis' fingers were blue. The team kept pumping his chest. No rescue truck arrived.

At one point, LaMorge turned to Captain Chester Rich of the police department.

"Do you think you could find a doctor or something? He's not getting any bluer, so we're going to continue to work on him."

Rich went to call a doctor. LaMorge went back to the team. But it was too late. At 8:30, more than a half-hour after they started working on him, they gave up. George Milkaitis was dead.

Thirty minutes later, Francis Smith, 65, of East Providence, collapsed near the station while trying to get home from a wake. The team went to work again. Once again, police called a rescue. None arrived. The team worked methodically, but urgently. But Smith, too, died.

By the time Sergeant Velucci arrived with the body of Manuel Silva, the bodies of Milkaitis and Smith were already in a makeshift morgue in the cellblock. The storm had claimed its first three victims.

The rescue trucks couldn't get to the police station because, like other cars and trucks, they were stuck in traffic, snowbound. Emergency services were paralyzed. Captain Rich and Lt. Thomas Brandenburg put out a call for snowmobiles and four-wheel-drive vehicles. They also called a doctor. Another man with chest pains was at the police station. If they couldn't get him to a hospital, they would bring one to him.

In the back of the station, they set up their own emergency room.

Rescue trucks were not the only emergency vehicles stuck in the traffic jams. Police cars, tow trucks and snowplows were all disabled, first by the congestion, finally by the drifting snow. At the fire station on North Main Street, firemen shook their heads in concern and disbelief. If they were called to a fire, they wouldn't even be able to get their trucks out of the station.

SGT. BROSCO LEFT the Cranston Street Armory about 6 p.m. in a troop carrier to round up some other guardsmen who were unable to make it to work. The governor's emergency declaration had activated the Guard, and they needed every man they could get to assist stranded motorists and keep emergency services going.

Brosco picked up the first of the three men he was assigned. But he couldn't get to the second. Nor could he get back to his office. He got out on Route 95 northbound. The southbound lane was full of cars. A man climbed over the divider, waving frantically. Brosco stopped. The man was shivering and covered with snow.

Hop in," Brosco shouted. The man climbed into the cab.

As they crept forward a few hundred yards they saw a man running through the snow up an embankment. They flagged him down.

"I've got a year-and-a-half old son and a two-month-old baby in my car!" he shouted. "I want to get them out of here!"

The first man turned to Brosco.

"I'll make it on my own," he said.

The second man returned to his car for his wife and the two children. He helped the three of them into Brosco's truck.

"Go ahead," he said. He said his aunt was still in the car. He would stay with her.

Brosco pushed ahead toward the North Main Street exit off 95. It was blocked. He kept going. It was easier in Pawtucket. Brosco didn't know why and didn't think about it. He got the woman and the two children to the Pawtucket Armory. Then he headed for the Armory of Mounted Commands on North Main Street in Providence. He arrived about 8 p.m., two hours after he had started out, covered with snow and soaking wet.

Brosco had hardly got in the door when Brig-Gen. John Kiely approached him and his partner, Sgt. Maj. Charles Davies.

"We've got to get the people off Route 95," Kiely said.

Brosco took a deep breath and thought a minute. He had been stuck in the snow at least a half-dozen times in the past hour. He had swerved around countless abandoned cars. He had no idea how he had made it where he was.

But he knew people were out there. And he already had learned how badly they needed help.

"Well, I think we can do it," he said. "I'll give it a shot."

Brosco and Davies set out in the cab of the small troop carrier. Three times they became stuck in the snow and worked themselves free again as they weaved in and out of the abandoned cars on North Main Street, searching for a way to get to Route 95. Finally, Brosco found a path down an exit ramp on Branch Avenue. A school bus all but blocked his way to the exit, and cars were stranded along the ramp itself. He maneuvered his way carefully against the grain of the stalled traffic, straddling the curb as he picked his way toward the northbound lane of the highway. By 9 p.m., he was on it, headed south.

On the first trip, he and Davies picked up nine people, jamming a couple of them in the cab with them and putting the rest in the back of the truck.

Many stranded motorists refused the ride out of the mess, preferring to stay with their cars. Some were afraid of being towed or getting a ticket. Some were afraid of vandals. And some were certain the traffic would start moving again.

Brosco made it back to the armory with his passengers and reported he had found a route to the highway. Then he turned around and headed back out for another trip.

Meanwhile, Velucci had returned to the East Side after his grim trip to the police station. A girl on Thayer Street, bleeding internally, had to get to a hospital. As he headed down Hope Street, his wheels stuck in the snow. Brown University students surrounded the truck and rocked it until he got out. He moved another 50 feet and got stuck again. The students got him out once more, and they followed him all the way to the house on Thayer Street.

After he picked the girl up, the snow finally was too much for the truck. She had to be taken to the hospital by snowmobile. Velucci never found out if she made it.

With the students' help, he finally got the truck out of the snow and headed back to the armory on North Main Street, about a mile and a half away. But at Camp Street and Doyle Avenue, his luck ran out. He abandoned the truck and started walking.

The snow, whipped by gale winds, cut into his face as he struggled through hip-deep drifts. He had nearly a mile to walk to get to the armory.

"I'm not going to make it," he said to himself. He was scared. "I've got a nine-year-old-boy at home. What am I doing out here? Should I be out here helping people or thinking about my wife and my son? Is this worth it?"

When he finally walked into the armory, he was covered with snow and ice and soaked to the skin. He changed his clothes and got another rescue assignment. He walked back into the storm.

OUT ON ROUTE 195, Richard Thompson turned his car engine on for a few minutes every hour to stay warm. He got out of his car every once in a while to kick the snow away from his tailpipe and prevent poisonous carbon monoxide fumes from filtering into the car. In the time it took him to take just one quick walk around his car, snow covered his clothing and stuck to his glasses. When he got back in his car, the snow melted.

As he sat there enclosed by snow-covered windows, he was struck by the thought that he was stranded and helpless on a superhighway in the middle of civilization. City buildings with city people were all around him, yet he could reach none of them.

Eventually, after turning the engine off again, he dozed, still certain that somehow, the mess would untangle itself soon.

Hundreds of drivers agreed. But their numbers were dwindling. The early trickle of refugees from the highways was a steady stream by mid-evening. The Holiday Inn and the Marriott, the only two major hotels in the city, were full. Clerks handed out sheets so people could cover themselves while they slept in the corridors. Emergency shelters sprang up wherever a handful of people gathered. More than 600 people poured into the Civic Center. Hospitals, department stores and factories opened their doors. In Warwick, West Warwick and Coventry, East Providence and Providence, more than 900 youngsters were forced to spend the night in their schools. Hundreds of others, stranded in buses on the state's roadways, sought shelter elsewhere. In Exeter, one school bus driver, unable to reach the homes of five of his passengers, took them all home with him instead.

In Southeastern New England, hardly anything was moving.

"We have made a survey of the entire state and everything is negative." Civil Defense director Santo Amato said late in the evening. "No city or town has passable highways. We have shelters loaded with people and every public building that is open is serving as a shelter."

He added: "I am concerned that people are abandoning their cars on the freeways. This poses an extremely serious problem. We have never had that happen before in this part of the United States."

Meanwhile, Garrahy wanted to get to the State House to run the state's now snowfighting operations. The 20-minute trip took four hours in a 1 1/4-ton National Guard truck. The truck mired in snow near Providence College, and 26 students piled out of a bar and lifted it out to get it going again.

By the time he got to the State House, he knew the state was confronted with more than it could handle. He called Bill Wilcox of the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration in Boston.

"We need a declaration of a state of emergency from the President," Garrahy said, "a presidential declaration."

"Governor," Wilcox said. "The White House needs assurance."

From what he had seen, Garrahy knew there was no time to study the question. Rhode Island was shut down.

"Let me tell you, I'm not overreacting," he said. "We are in a real state of emergency. The life and safety of people are being threatened. We need a presidential declaration. We need help.

TO THE EXTENT THAT IT COULD, Rhode Island was still helping itself. Throughout the night Sergeant Brosco returned to Route 95 again and again to rescue stranded motorists. After the second trip, another vehicle joined the mission.

Each trip down the highway cut a new path. Within five minutes of each pass down the northbound lane, snow tore in to fill the tracks. Even with high beams glaring and emergency lights flashing, visibility was about 100 feet. And the snow was getting deeper and deeper.

"Come on, baby," Brosco said aloud, urging the truck through the snow. "Come on, you gotta make it this time. Let's go. We gotta make it."

He kept thinking, "What am I going to do if I get stuck? What will we do with these people?"

During the early morning hours, he and Davies got out of the truck to check cars, scraping the snow off the windshield to alert the occupants. Brosco was scared. He was certain he was going to scrape away the snow on some car and find a body.

He had seen dead people before, but he doubted he could handle it tonight. He was already working at the edge of his emotions. There was so much to do, he thought, and so little he could do. Several times, on the way back with a truck full of refugees, he passed other people who had given up the wait and wanted a ride back.

"I'm coming right back," he told one man. "You stay right here and I'll get you the next trip."

When he got back, the man was gone. Brosco figured the man got help from someone else, but he couldn't be sure. He lived through the night wondering constantly what was happening to those he was leaving behind. At one point, he almost cried. By 3 a.m., the mettle of those who had stuck with their cars was wearing thin. The fight against the snow and the traffic jam had finally become a battle for survival. The snow would not stop falling. The traffic would not move. Some began to wonder if they could last. As Brosco headed back down the highway, many motorists flashed their headlights on and off in an eerie and desperate signal for help.

About the same time, Thompson was awakened by a sharp pounding on his roof. He rolled down the window. There stood a man offering him a cup of coffee and a candy bar. He took the candy bar.

"Speidel's got a shelter opening up just down the embankment," the man told him. "You ought to head down there."

Thompson was skeptical. It was 3 a.m, he thought. He had come this far. The jam would clear up by daybreak.

But the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He agreed to go to the shelter. He stepped out of the car and headed toward a speed limit sign. He knew that was where he should climb over the guardrail and down an embankment. He had not gone far when he started to shiver. It wasn't just a quick chill. His body seemed to shake violently. Nothing he did would stop it.

Thompson thought he had kept himself warm in the car. But he had got covered with snow during his frequent checks of the exhaust pipe. The snow melted when he got into the car, and it soaked him. It wasn't until he had drunk two cups of coffee at the Speidel shelter that he felt comfortable again. He sat down in a chair and fell asleep. He would head back to his office early in the morning, he decided.

AT DAYBREAK, the wind and snow continued. Thompson woke up in his chair about 7 a.m. with a crick in his neck, but convinced he would get back to his office that morning.

He still had no idea of the magnitude of the storm or the jam that had forced him to the shelter.

One radio reporter listed several school and job closings during the 7 a.m. news, than advised those whose companies weren't included to check with supervisors before trying to get to work.

"Check with supervisors?" said Lt. Charles Gontarek, who heard the broadcast in the Providence police station. "You can't even get a doctor to a hospital."

At 8:30 a.m., Garrahy talked to Jack Watson, one of President Jimmy Carter's aides, about the request for emergency federal aid.

"Don't wait for the paperwork," Watson said. "You've got it."

The governor could start spending federal money to help get the state out of the mess. He knew from a night of telephone calls to city and state officials that conditions were bad.

"I want the people of this state to know that they should be prepared for at least a couple of days of isolation." The governor said.

FOR THOMPSON and the 400 stranded refugees at Speidel and for the thousands of people in other buildings around the city, slumped over in chairs, lying on hard floors with only coats for pillows, it meant finding a way to get comfortable.

Getting to know strangers in the shelters wasn't hard. No one was at a loss for something to talk about. Some people struck up close friendships. But as war stories of treks in the blizzard wore thin through the night and into the morning, the inconvenience and even desperation of the refugees' situation was evident.

Simple items such as toothbrushes and razors were scarce; showers were unheard of; lines for toilets and telephones seemed endless. But it was food and separation from families that were most troublesome.

Steve Cevoli of North Kingstown, a pay phone collector for New England Telephone, was trapped in the company garage on Allens Avenue. He slept the first night on a piece of plywood stretched between the bucket seats in his company truck. He repeatedly called his home to talk to his wife Kathy and 6-year-old son who were sick in their cold, dark home. They had lost power in the storm.

After going without food for the first night, Cevoli and the 19 men with him broke into company vending machines Tuesday to get what candy was left.

At the Narragansett Electric Co. plant, also on Allens Avenue, about 125 stranded commuters and company workers alternated short naps on a handful of cots and survived the night and the next morning on coffee and dry toast.

At Girl Scout headquarters in Randall Square, and at schools sheltering stranded students, resourceful youngsters made playing cards out of index cards and computer printouts. Students and teachers took over cafeteria duties. And at the Winman Junior High School in Warwick, televisions, each tuned to a differedt channel, were set up in separate rooms to provide a choice of programs.

On Tuesday morning at Speidel, Thompson took a look at the snow still falling. At 56, he knew it would be folly to try to walk outside.

Speidel workers had made the rounds with coffee and warm biscuits. By mid-morning, however, a handful of volunteers trooped up to Leo's Restaurant on nearby Chestnut Street, which supplied sandwiches to the shelter until bread ran out. One of the refugees had left a Pepsi-Cola truck on the highway and every once in a while, he hiked to the truck and carried back a couple of cases of Pepsi.

A young man who struck up an acquaintance with a young woman stranded at the shelter asked to borrow Thompson's boots so he and the woman could get out for a walk and get something to eat. Thompson surrendered his boots, wondering with a smile which of the two basic instincts -- survival or mating -- was the stronger.

But mostly, Thompson was restless. "We had nothing to do and all day to do it." He said.

At noon, the woman returned without her companion, the man who had borrowed the boots. Thompson wasn't worried about getting his boots back. He just wanted them there when it stopped snowing so he could walk back to his office. Five hours later the man returned after a survey of the bars open during the blizzard.

AS THE STORM slackened during the day, southern Rhode Island communities began shoveling out. Faced with fewer abandoned vehicles and less snow, and able to get plows on the streets, they started clearing. State trucks in those areas also were working.

But Providence was overwhelmed. With the snow still falling during the day, no one seemed to know where to begin. The National Guard and volunteers had checked most of the stranded vehicles and had determined that no one was left on the highway who didn't want to be there. Both state and city officials concentrated on emergencies, trying to get medical treatment to the sick and injured.

Garrahy and his staff worried about getting equipment and men to free the highways blocked by snow and cars. A consortium of snow-removal contractors from Buffalo, N.Y., called the State House that morning to offer their services. The governor's staff put them on standby. Garrahy wanted the official emergency declaration from President Carter before he hired them. At 4:30 p.m. President Carter signed the emergency declaration. Garrahy's staff told the Buffalo equipment to roll.

But the governor counted most on the Army. That's were most of the heavy snow-removal equipment would come from. He knew he would need Green Airport open to get it here.

Just after lunch on Tuesday, Col. Robert E. Ayers, commanding officer of the 36th Engineer Group at Fort Benning, Ga., got a telephone call from his superior officer at Fort McPherson, Ga., telling him to put together a snow-removal task force and be ready to leave for Rhode Island by Thursday.

After several urgent and sometimes angry telephone calls during the afternoon among Rhode Island congressmen, state officials and Army and Air Force leaders, Ayers got another call.

"We're not waiting for Thursday," Ayers was told. "You will be leaving as soon as possible, perhaps before midnight." It was 5 p.m.

Ayers and his men had never fought a snowstorm. The colonel had no snow-removal contingency plan. Getting bulldozers, road graders and dump trucks together on such short notice wasn't easy. He asked for lists of available equipment from his own unit at Fort Benning and from other engineer battalions at Fort Polk, La., and Fort Steward, Ga. He needed the lists by weight so the airplanes could be loaded. And he needed enough support equipment and supplies, including maintenance vehicles, fuel, spare parts and C-rations, so the Army could operate independently in Rhode Island.

State workers had begun clearing snow on the main runway Monday at noon, after an inch of snow had fallen. But by 3 p.m., they had been overwhelmed. Drifting snow cut visibility to 50 feet. The high winds pushed snow right back into the paths the plows had made.

But the crew hadn't stopped. They had moved their plows and snowblowers to the aprons and the area around the terminal and had worked through Monday night and early Tuesday morning to keep up with it as best they could. At 11:30 a.m., the snowfall had slacked off enough to permit them to get back on the runway.

Under normal conditions, six plows working on a runway as soon as snow accumulates can make one complete 180-foot-wide sweep of the 6,466-foot runway in 20 minutes. Then a snowblower moves down the edges, gobbling up the plow drift and flinging it clear of the runway. The crew repeats the process as long as necessary.

These weren't normal conditions. Drifts eight feet deep blocked sections of the runway. Instead of making an 8-to-10-foot cut in the snow, each plow could take only a foot or two. The drifts knocked the plows off their tracks or stopped them altogether. After each cut of 8 to 10 feet, the slomoving snowblowers had to throw the plow drift away.

At 7:30, the plowing crew came in for supper. Since 11:30 in the morning, they had opened a 60-foot-wide strip the full length of the runway. They had another 120 feet to go before any military planes could land.

At 8 p.m., Governor Garrahy called Victor C. Ricci, state airports director, from the State House. The first planes were due in around 2 a.m., he said.

"Could we have a runway ready to take military aircraft by then?" the governor asked. "We need it to get the Army's heavy snow-removal equipment in here."

Ricci's crew hadn't slept in 38 hours, and he was just about to let them off for a rest. He was thinking they could shut down now and get back out there in four or five hours and finish the job by morning. But it was clear to him the airport was the key to the state's recovery. It was the only opening to the rest of the world.

"I'll get back to you and let you know our status, governor," Ricci said.

He hung up and turned to the plow operators, who sat in his office, wet, weary and sipping coffee. Ricci didn't want to ask the question.

"The governor wants the runway. Can you go back out and give us the runway?"

There was no immediate response. The men didn't think they had to answer. They continued to drink coffee and talk. Ten minutes later, as if on cue, they all got up.

"Well," one of them said. "Let's go."

Ricci called the governor back.

"We'll have the runway for you by 2 a.m."

IT STOPPED SNOWING late Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, the sun came out. Richard Thompson was up early in the Speidel shelter. He itched. He needed a shave. And he stank. In the restroom he found a bottle of British Sterling shaving lotion and splashed some on his face. Just about any scent would be an improvement, he figured.

The 400 refugees were divided alphabetically into four groups to go out one group at a time to look for a decent breakfast. Thompson, however, had had enough. He pulled on his boots and his thermal jacket and bade the rest of the group goodbye. He set out for his office about two miles away.

At the telephone company garage on Allens Avenue, Steve Cevoli decided to walk home to North Kingstown. He had lasted most of Tuesday on candy bars until the telephone company sent five stale hamburger rolls, three hot dogs, a half-pound of bologna and some cheese to the garage late in the day. The food had to be shared among 20 refugees.

Cevoli wrapped his legs in heavy plastic packaging, stuffed pieces of stale bread in his pocket and left.

Hundreds of other shelter-dwellers hit the streets. All were eager for fresh air, exercise and a reunion with their families. But most of all, they were curious. After waiting out the blizzard, they wanted to see for themselves just what had happened. What they saw was breathtaking and eerie.

Except for the excited chatter and friendly greetings of the refugees themselves and the occasional sound of a snowmobile, the streets were silent. Without the exhaust of thousands of commuters' cars, the city air was fresh and crisp.

Streets were nearly impassable to vehicles. Mayor Cianci had banned all but emergency traffic in the city, an order the unplowed, car-blocked streets were enforcing for him. Indeed, along North and South Main Street and in Randall Square, it looked as if it would be easy to step from car roof to car roof for blocks.

The most incredible sight was Route 95. Cars and trucks -- four abreast and bumper to bumper -- stretched for miles in abandoned silence, as if life had been sucked out of them.

Governor Garrahy toured the state by helicopter as he headed to Green Airport to meet the Army. He was aghast. As he looked down on the paralyzed lanes of Routes 195, 95 and 146, he wondered if the state would ever get going again. Everything near the capital city stood still.

COLONEL AYERS left Fort Benning at 4:20 a.m. Wednesday with three staff members in a twin-engine plane bound for Rhode Island. As he took off, tons of equipment and dozens of men were in hangars and on runways, waiting for C-130s, C-141s and C5As from the Air Force fleet of cargo planes.

He had set up three work teams, one from each of the mobilized forts, and each with separate shifts so they could work around the clock. He had jeeps, pickup trucks, dump trucks, payloaders, graders and bulldozers, dozens of pieces of support and maintenance equipment, and nearly 350 men.

The first C-130 took off from Fort Benning at 5 a.m., and because Ayers' plane had to stop to refuel, the first troops and load of equipment arrived just ahead of him, at 10:10 a.m., eight hours after the state workers cleared the main runway. Garrahy was there to greet them. As the troops filed out, a lump filled his throat. It reminded him of war.

BUT A MORE URGENT battle was going on in and around Providence. The snowbound city and the paralyzed highways had strangled emergency routes. The only way to move quickly on the ground was by snowmobile. The only other way to move was by helicopter.

Monday night and Tuesday, the National Guard, Providence rescue workers, snowmobile operators and other volunteers met what emergency medical calls they could. Makeshift hospitals were set up in the Providence police station, the YMCA and the Marriott Hotel. A doctor made room calls at the Holiday Inn.

On Tuesday morning, Melissa Ann Percival had become the first baby born at the Bristol County Medical Center. Sheryl Percival of Warren couldn't get to the hospital in Providence. So the doctor came by snowmobile to Bristol. Melissa was placed in a cardboard box lined with pads and sheets with a 60-watt lightbulb rigged up to keep her warm.

Now, however, routine medical runs had emergencies as well. People out of medicine were to get prescriptions filed. Kidney patients couldn't get to hospitals.

Army National Guard helicopters based at Quonset Point became the nucleus of a medical taxi service. Landing pads were set up at hospitals and in snowbound communities.

Patients, doctors and nurses were ferried to and from hospitals. The most urgent cases went by air. Snowmobiles and four-wheel-drive vehicles formed an ambulance service on the ground and kept hospitals and the improvised emergency rooms in shelters supplied with drugs.

Food and fuel supplies, although plentiful at the suppliers, were choked off from homes and businesses, especially in the unplowed streets in Providence.

Helicopters airlifted meat and produce from suppliers to delivery points were restaurants, supermarkets and relief agencies such as the Red Cross could pick them up.

At Red Cross headquarters on Providence's East Side, cooks prepared hundreds of meals which were carried by dozens of volunteers, mostly Brown University students who donned backpacks and skis or hauled sleds for several miles to get food to shelters.

Meanwhile, public works crews in suburban communities whose roads were comparatively free of abandoned cars made substantial progress Wednesday clearing snow. State plows opened at least two lanes on most state highways not blocked by vehicles.

Richard Thompson made it back to his office by 7:30 Wednesday morning, then learned from gas company workers in Newport that roads in southern sections of the state were open. As a utility worker, he qualified as an emergency employee who would be permitted on the highways. He and another man decided to try to make it home.

They headed south on Route 1 out of Providence through Cranston, Warwick and North Kingstown, then headed over the Jamestown and Newport Bridges to Aquidneck Island.

Having walked along the snowbound Providence streets earlier in the morning. Thompson found it hard to understand why one city was so paralyzed when others had made such strides. The trip home took him four hours, but he made it. His own car, however, remained stranded on Route 195.

Fall River and Attleboro, where abandoned cars posed some problem, declared states of emergency, but they made much more progress than Providence, where city plows and tow trucks cleared away small sections of downtown, but were nearly every residential neighborhood saw not a single plow.

ARMY TROOPS and equipment continued to arrive throughout Wednesday, but much to slowly for Garrahy's liking. Late in the afternoon the Air Force had backed off on its agreement to provide the large C-141s to move the equipment. Sen. Claiborne Pell prodded the Air Force, and they reversed the reversal. By 8 p.m., the Air Force had decided to use even the C-5A, the largest cargo plane in the world.

In Woonsocket, where 54 inches of snow fell on Monday and Tuesday, Mayor Gerard Bouley sent policemen to the Woonsocket exit on Route 146 to meet the first pieces of heavy equipment from Buffalo as they moved into the state Wednesday night. He was determined to intercept all the equipment he needed and get his city cleared out before allowing the machinery to move toward Providence.

Meanwhile, Mayor Cianci announced a ban not only on vehicles in Providence, but on pedestrians as well. Sightseers were hampering tow trucks and other emergency vehicles as they tried to clear downtown streets, he said. Looters were taking advantage of the city's isolated neighborhoods.

At midnight, he ordered policemen at key points in the city to keep people out of downtown. But during the day Thursday, the pedestrian ban went largely ignored and unenforced. Snowbound residents and refugees from shelters were not to be confined any longer.

FROM THE BEGINNING, Garrahy declared that opening routes 95 and 195 was the first step to opening the state. Without the interstate highways, food, fuel and supplies bound not only for Rhode Island but for Massachusetts could not get through.

By Wednesday night, a one-lane path that wound around stalled cars and trucks had been cleared through the jam on the highways. With Ayers and state officials, Garrahy planned a three-pronged attack on the interstates.

One Army team would start at the Massachusetts state line on Route 195 and move toward Providence. Two others would start on Route 95 south and split at the Routes 95-195 interchange. Wreckers would move the cars to center lanes, and the Army equipment under Ayers' command would move the snow from the outside lanes.

On Thursday morning, the battle began. The equipment, much of it painted in jungle camourflage, advanced on Route 95 toward Providence.

At 12:30 p.m., for the first time in its history, Garrahy activated the state's Emergency Broadcast Network, originally designed for official announcements in times of war.

"Rhode Island," he said, "is definitely in the recovery stage." But the travel bans continued, and it would be the weekend at the earliest before interstates througjh Providence would be open to general traffic.

Indeed the region was finally recovering from the blizzard. By Thursday, cities and towns in southern Rhode Island were substantially plowed out. Traffic bans were lifted. Most families were reunited as the numbers of refugees in city shelters dwindled.

ON THE HIGHWAYS, the Army was making progress. Men who were used to digging trenches for make-believe wars now were playing for real. They enjoyed pushing through the snow and looking back at the roads that slowly opened up behind them.

With state workers and private wreckers, the Army worked fast. Much of Route 195 had been cleared by state crews before the Army arrived. By 6 p.m. Thursday, it was clear in both directions, with stalled cars lined up in the center lanes.

By Friday night nearly all the major highways were open to emergency traffic, including truckers delivering food and other essential supplies. The jam, which had seemed impenetrable two days before, was finally loosening its grip on the highways. Hundreds of drivers came out to the highways, looking for their abandoned cars.

A snowplow operator whom Richard Thompson had befriended at the Speidel shelter notified the gas company on Thursday when Thompson's stranded car was free. Vandals had smashed the windshield, but a truck driver who had heard the noise scared them off before they could get at the two-way radio and some belongings inside.

Thompson took Thursday off, but on Friday he returned to his office to work. Roads were open enough for him to get to and from home. For him, the ordeal of the blizzard was over.

For the city, however, it was far from over. The plight of Providence became a source of amazement and humor. On Block Island, where children were back at school before the end of the week, pilots offered airplane tours over the city for $15 so islanders could see the mess.

But residents of some snowbound Providence neighborhoods, who had not seen a snowplow or an oil truck since the storm began, saw little humor. The adventure of the blizzard was turning to hardship.

Milcides Martinez, a South Providence resident, had no warm stories to tell about human kindness and makeshift shelters. He was not worried about a car on the highway or a pedestrian ban. Martinez ran out of food on Thursday. He had only juice left for his two children, ages 17 months and three years. He was unemployed and the storm had shut down the factory were his wife worked.

The next day, Carmen Fernandez a mother of three, called the Red Cross emergency line in vain. She had run out of fuel and her three children were cold.

For Martinez, Fernandez and their neighbors, it would be at least two more days before cars and trucks could make it through their neighborhood.

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, with the interstates nearly free, with Buffalo equipment released from other cities, with Army reinforcements arriving from a unit originally bound for Massachusetts, from the Navy Seabees and from an Army Reserve unit from Attleboro, an embattled Mayor Cianci and his staff planned a snowplow invasion of the neighborhoods.

On Saturday morning, the final phase of the digout from the blizzard started. As bulldozers and payloaders rolled down arteries and into neighborhoods moving the mounds of snow, residents cheered, some with delight, some mocking six days of forced isolation.

At midnight Saturday, Green Airport reopened to commercial flights. On Sunday, nearly every major artery in Providence was open, although streets were still not clear to the curbs. The machines could concentrate on neighborhood streets.

The same day, the entire highway system was unplugged and open to all traffic. But the ramps leading to the city of Providence were deliberately blocked by trucks, policemen or mounds of snow.

Early Monday morning, Providence opened for business but remained closed to traffic. Commuters piled onto special buses at stops surrounding Greater Providence. Some came to work. Some came to get their cars. And some came just to feel normal again.

Late Monday morning, nearly one week to the hour from the fall of the first snowflake, the traffic ban was lifted. Providence was open.

During that week, 17 people died from the storm; hundreds were provided food and emergency medical care in nearly impossible circumstances; thousands were rescued.

"These were conditions that bring out the extremes in people," Richard Thompson said later. Some extremes were bad. Some businesses were looted. A few businessmen gouged their customers. And after a week of being snowbound, many people just lost their patience.

Mostly the extremes were good. There were countless stories of people sacrificing to help others. When the blizzard put up barriers to our normal way of life, other barriers went down.

"Tonight I've met a man who only lives a half-mile from me whom I haven't seen in 15 years," Paul Wasylean of Blackstone, Mass., said as he sat stranded at a McDonald's restaurant on the night of the storm. "How could I ever do this if it weren't for the storm? We need something like this sometimes to make us slow down and look around."

The opening of Providence on Feb. 13 was more a gesture than an accurate indication of how much pavement showed on the streets. But the gesture was important. After a week, everyone needed hope that the end was near. But in some ways, it would never end.

It would be several days before conditions returned to normal. It would be weeks before the economic impact of the Blizzard of '78 could be determined. It would be months before people stopped telling their stories. But those who lived through it, in car, homes, shelters and workplace, would never forget the week the state stood still.

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