The rest of us might scramble indoors, but a little cold never stops the U.S. Coast Guard. On Dec. 26, snow settled across Cleveland. By the next morning, temperatures had dropped to 6 below zero, freezing the city into an icy expanse. Cars slipped and slogged. With tows scarce, abandoned vehicles dotted city streets. The Nickel Plate train plodded in late. The Cleveland Transit System’s buses ran behind schedule. Planes were grounded at Cleveland Municipal Airport. City officials told residents to stay home for most of the week.
But as the rest of the city cowered, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, a hardy Coast Guardsman donned a head-to-toe snowsuit and braved the chill with a bayoneted rifle in hand. The unidentified guardsman watched over a sheet of ice that extended from the Main Avenue Bridge, past the art deco Coast Guard station where he stood and a mile into Lake Erie.
If ever an icebreaker was needed, this was the time. Luckily, down the shore in Toledo, the Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw was preparing for a journey. The 10,000-horsepower, more than 5,000-ton craft had crashed effortlessly through a solid inch of Lake Erie ice on a test run earlier that month. One problem: On Dec. 27, the Mackinaw took its talents to north beach — Cheboygan, Michigan.
More recently, the Coast Guard station was refurbished by the Cleveland Metroparks and now hosts sailing lessons by the Foundry.
1944: A Snow Storm And Below-Freezing Temperatures Shut The City Down
One unidentified guardsman braved the cold and watched a sheet of ice that stretched over a mile.
