Dan Bewley is INDOT’s last man standing from the Blizzard of 1978, which buried Indiana cities and citizens under an avalanche of snow 47 years ago.
Bewley, who is set to retire in April 2025, is the last remaining active INDOT employee who plowed snow during the historic blizzard.
Bewley’s tale is one of courage and dedication.
He was stranded in his plow truck for three days on a rural state road, stuck in an enormous snowdrift with no food or water in minus-51-degree wind chills before being saved by a local farmer. Yet, he managed to free his truck and became one of the district’s only available plow drivers to later deal with the menacing blizzard.
While plowing the remote State Road 75 north of Advance in Boone County late Jan. 25, 1978, Bewley encountered 50 mph wind speeds during the heavy snowfall.
“At this point, I could not even see the truck’s hood ornament, which was 5 feet in front of me,” said Bewley.
Forging ahead to create a new single-lane path on S.R. 75, Bewley, in essence, was flying blind. His plow became stuck in an enormous snowdrift. The truck’s two saddle tanks were filled with gas, so Bewley kept the truck running to stay warm.
Meanwhile, the snow enveloped Bewley’s truck, almost literally. Snow built up and arced over the cab, practically encircling it. The snow fell for 31 consecutive hours; the entire time, Bewley couldn’t see more than 5 feet away, even during daylight.
At daybreak, Friday, Jan. 27, the snow had stopped, and the sun had come out. The entire time, he was stuck in front of a farmhouse. The farmer plodded through the drifts to talk to Bewley, inviting him to come inside for breakfast. When Bewley exited the vehicle, he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“I’ll never forget this,” said Bewley. “I could finally see more than 5 feet away. As my eyes adjusted to the sun, I looked up and saw snowdrifts more than 20 feet high, just below the wires of the telephone poles. The drifts were that high for a couple hundred feet in each direction.”
The farmer and his son used a tractor from their barn and attached a snowblower to it, providing a bare spot for Bewley’s truck. This enabled Bewley to finally break the truck free from the drift.
Soon, he joined other INDOT workers and the Indiana National Guard to attack the snow, which blitzed the area with a still-standing record of 15.5 inches in a 24-hour period.
“The National Guard had tanks and armored personnel carriers to break through those high drifts,” said Bewley. “We worked with them to ensure that nobody was stuck on the highways, remove abandoned vehicles from the roadway, plow snow, and help with the snowdrifts on the road. Depending where we were located, I saw some drifts next to telephone poles as high as the ones where I had been stuck on State Road 75.”
Added Bewley: “Our INDOT Lebanon Unit worked nonstop, using our payloader and backhoe to remove tall drifts. At first, we cut a path through the drifts to fit one vehicle. If you met someone coming from the other direction, one of you had to back out. A few times, I saw snowmobilers jump over the path that we just cut.”
He concluded: “This was a time in my life that I will always remember. I tell my grandchildren about it, and they can’t believe that the snow ever got that deep.”
