Digging Out In Tug Hill

I mentioned the other day that I was a veteran of winters in Oswego, New York. Trust me on this, surviving winters up there is a whole different world than it is in a lot of the country. The lake effect snow is a real force to be reckoned with. I mentioned the Tug Hill region in passing in that post. Well today, the major media also noticed Tug Hill. I thought people might be interested.

Residents of the nearby town of Mexico see 5- to 6-foot snowfalls every two or three years, but this time even hardened locals are amazed.

The only signs of parked SUVs are their radio antennas or roof racks sticking up above the snow. Front doors are buried and footprints lead to second-story windows. Sidewalks that have been dug out look like miniature canyons.

The state transportation department said 125 workers from elsewhere in the state had been sent in with snow equipment to help.

The region is located along the Tug Hill Plateau, the snowiest region this side of the Rocky Mountains. It's a 50-mile wedge of land that rises 2,100 feet from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. It usually gets about 300 inches — roughly 25 feet — of snow a year. The hamlet of Hooker, near the boundaries of Jefferson, Lewis, and Oswego counties, holds the state's one-year record with 466.9 inches, about 39 feet, in the winter of 1976-77.

Less than a month ago it seemed more like spring.

Some homes in the Tug Hill area have an outside door on the second floor of the house. There are no outside steps leading to that door. People who are not familiar with the area don't understand this when they drive past in the summer months. (I have heard of these doors being called "angel doors", which is kind of an interesting term). These are doors for the winter months. The other architectural oddity you see in that region is flashing on the eaves of the roof that extends back three feet or better from the edge. This helps combat ice dams. Here's a website for the Tug Hill region. One of the guys I went to college with was from Hooker, incidentally. That winter of '76-'77 was amazing. His family had a heck of a time that year, I heard the stories firsthand.