Walter A. Nebiker took this photo of Water Street in Warren after the storm had passed.

“Snow began falling before noon” on Feb. 6, 1978 “and continued into the night, accompanied by strong winds,” recalls Walter A. Nebiker, of Warren. That night “Marcia [my friend] and Sitka [our Siberian husky] and I took a walk in the blizzard . . . along Water Street . . . It was a great experience but the wind and snow hitting us head-on on our return made for rough going. . . It was a wild show, one of the wildest I have ever seen.”

Nebiker is not alone in the East Bay/Massachusetts area in recalling the Blizzard of ’78 as a remarkable event in his lifetime. One request in The Journal for personal pictures of the storm produced a flurry (to use an inappropriate pun) of responses.

Extra

---Gallery: Readers share their pictures

Take a look back at the Blizzard of '78 . . .

We offer some of the pictures here, along with some taken by Journal staffers at the time, including what became a frustratingly famous image of Route 195, well-plowed in Massachusetts to the state line and then impassable in Rhode Island.

Continuing Nebiker’s chronology: “On Tuesday the world was quiet and still. The snow was plastered on everything and piled up on the ground. . . A state of emergency was declared.

“Wednesday was a beautiful day — sunny and bright. . . . [In Warren] many people and a few vehicles were out. Front loaders were clearing side streets … Traffic was still snarled around Providence and today some men and equipment were flown in to help with the roads.

“Thursday was another lovely day. . . . Our tenants returned home shortly before noon after having been snowbound in Providence for three days.…

“Saturday was mostly sunny with a few clouds but there was very little melting of the snow. Trucks were busy hauling snow away from Water Street. . . . [On Sunday] Providence was still closed to traffic. . . . After this, life pretty much returned to normal.”

Chip Hawkins, of Barrington, married Susan Zawatsky, of Cranston, as scheduled in St. Ann’s Church in Cranston on Saturday the 11th — but not without a lot of effort.

It became clear the day before the nuptials that the Barrington Yacht Club wouldn’t be plowed out in time for the reception and that the grandmothers wouldn’t be able to fly in from Florida for the event. The bride had her gown but the bridesmaids’ gowns weren’t going to be part of the ceremony either.

Technically, it was illegal to be on the highway but the groom and ushers gathered in Barrington and navigated the highway to Cranston in a Bronco in record time with no one else on the highway.

“You just knew this wasn’t going to be easy,” Hawkins recalled last week, but the wedding went off in style and the couple took their honeymoon a few days later — skiing in New Hampshire.