Remembering the Blizzard of ‘93

Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: March 2025

In my essay on Highlands at 150, I mentioned the Blizzard of 1993, a Storm of the Century that phosphoresces in the psyche of its survivors with the vividness of December 7 or September 11.

If you didn’t live here during this catastrophe, let me give you a snapshot. It’ll explain why I and every other survivor still gets a little twitchy when our phone tells us that in two days, we’ll be getting a dusting of snow starting at 7:00 A.M.

We’re instantly transported back to Friday, March 12, 1983, when WHLC and the Asheville and Greenville TV stations were talking about an impending snowstorm that was forming in the Gulf and threatening to bring four to six inches of snow to the region.

I was a reporter for The Highlander and Crossroads Chronicle and since a mid-March snowstorm was a bit peculiar (though I’ve seen a May dusting, and the late Doris Picklesimer told me she’d witnessed a June storm), I checked in with Highlands Chamber of Commerce’s Sam Bass to learn what it could mean for the Plateau.

Sam recommended that my family should stock up on bread and milk at Bryson’s in case there was trouble getting around the next morning.

Business-wise, Sam said that the storm would be pretty good for the few inns and B&Bs and shops that were operating at that funny time of year. Sam said there’d probably be people coming up for the skiing at Sapphire and they’d almost certainly be spending some money on the Plateau.

Sure enough, snow began falling on Saturday morning down in Whiteside Cove, where my family was living.

When you’re living with a six-year-old, every snowstorm is a cause for celebration, and Alex and I plunged into the requisite Fun Times – snowman rolling, snowball battles, igloo construction.

But by 11:00 A.M. I began to notice that there was something wrong with this storm – there was nothing delicate about these snowflakes, they were heavy and they fell to the earth with a definite whisper.

And there was also a steadily-building wind and temperatures were plummeting into the lower 20s, with windchill down to minus-10.

By 1:00 P.M. all of that wet snow and all of that wind had snapped white pines and saplings across the Plateau, downing power- and phone-lines and transporting everyone back to 11,000 BCE and the last Ice Age.

According to the Highlands Biological Foundation’s Dr. Richard Bruce, the Plateau received an average of 28 inches of snow, with drifts up to 38 inches. Wind speeds of 104 miles per hour were recorded, the equivalent of a Category-3 hurricane, and there were reports of thunder and lightning, as the storm raged.

According to my contemporaneous notes, there were reports of “snow tornadoes” in Cashiers and Glenville, but there was no corroboration on these sightings.

Roads were impassable, even with four-wheel drive vehicles and the vaunted Humvees, and Gov. Jim Hunt sent out the National Guard to help our beleaguered fire and rescue services.

I suppose if we were to look for something good that came out of that disaster, we need to look no further than the arrival of Samuel Wheeler, the son of Patti and the late David Wheeler.

Demonstrating what would turn out to be a lifelong flair for the dramatic, Samuel chose to be born while the storm was still raging, and while the newly constructed Highlands-Cashiers Hospital was in the process of opening.

If you’re new to the area or somehow missed all the excitement, perhaps this will help you understand why there’s a subtle frisson in the air whenever the Weather Service mentions even the possibility of snow moving into the area in three days.