1913 Toledo--"Big Blow"

A while back. Stanczyk posted a question: Did I have any posts about the 1913 “Big Blow” Great Lakes Hurricane? I couldn’t say I did. I hadn’t really heard of it until he discussed it. I did a bit of looking into the matter, it doesn’t seem to have affected Toledo too badly other than it was an early, heavy snowstorm for the city. However, this storm was terrible. It sunk lake freighters and made a huge impact on the Great Lakes region.

Looking for some historical meteorological data, I did find this:

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Toledo_Snowstorms.html

While it seems that this storm was a maritime disaster, I can’t find whether any of my Toledo relatives were directly affected by this “big blow”–none that I know of worked the freighters or on the port docks (most during this period worked in the burgeoning auto industry or other factories or as masons, carpenters, and a few eventually owned and operated a small grocery), but what I learned was fascinating. Prior to this, the only lake freighter I knew that sunk in the Great Lakes was the Edmund Fitzgerald. The November 12, 1913 edition of the Toledo News-Bee posted a list of lake tolls of this storm:

Lake ship tolls--November 12, 1913 Toledo News-Bee

The Toledo News-Bee reported on November 14, 1913 that 275 bodies washed ashore along the Great Lakes due to this storm and that 44 lake vessels were wrecked.

Toledo doesn’t seem to have been too badly affected by the storm. But it did affect transportation and like today, residents were complaining about property owners not cleaning the walks.

Letter to the editor-Toledo News-Bee November 12, 1913 -- why don't property owners clear walks?

Railroads affected in Toledo during 1913 Big Blow--clip from November 12, 1913 Toledo News-Bee

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