Fifty years ago, a massive storm brought chaos to parts of Siouxland.
Called the “Storm of the Century,” the blizzard that struck on January 10 and 11, 1975, claimed 58 lives in the Midwest, including five in Iowa.
Some areas saw up to 16 inches of snow with 60 mile per hour winds.
Ed Porter was a photographer for the Sioux City Journal in 1975. He’s 90 years old now and recalls flying overhead to photograph snow drifts up to 20 feet tall, shaped by 16 inches of snowfall and high winds.
“It was just pure white, except you'd see a bump in the road where the car was stuck, the train with the plow on the front of it, being totally bogged in, you know, the cattle and all the other things that were going on,” Porter said.
Governor Robert Ray declared 40 counties in Northwest and Western Iowa as disaster areas. An estimated 100,000 head of livestock died, and thousands were stranded in their cars.
