Blizzard of ’78 strikes Boston.

The three-day storm lasts 33 hours, dumps 27.1 inches of snow on Boston, a record for a single storm to this time, and adds to the 21.4 inches of snow that fell two weeks earlier. Winds reach nearly 80 miles an hour. The storm rises to five and a half feet above mean high water, equaling the record of April 1851. The storm kills 29 people across Massachusetts, forces hundreds to abandon their cars on highways and 10,000 people to seek shelter in public buildings, and causes an estimated $1 billion damage in the state. In Boston, 125 people are arrested for looting on the night of February 7, 1978. Mayor Kevin H. White is in Florida when the storm strikes Boston and , attempting to return to the city, can only get as far north as Washington, D.C. Roads are closed Boston for a week.