NORWELL — Fire Chief Andy Reardon's lifelong love affair with weather and disaster preparation began with the Blizzard '78, the first major storm he worked as a member of the Norwell Fire Department.
Then a 20-year-old student at Northeastern University, Reardon had already been working with the department for two years as a part-time dispatcher and an on-call firefighter to help pay his way through school.
On the morning of Feb. 6, 1978, Reardon headed to the city, as he did every Monday morning. There was news of a coming storm, so Reardon cut out early because he knew snow would mean a busy shift at the station, and he wanted to be nearby to help.
What Reardon didn't yet know was the force with which the blizzard would hit. For the next five days, Reardon, the department's six full-time firefighters and about 40 other part-time call firefighters would ride out the storm together, answering emergency calls and sleeping anywhere they could find time and space in the old Central Fire Station's cramped bunk loft.
Most of Reardon's time was spent inside the radio room, where it was his job to answer phone calls and dispatch fire apparatus.
Compared to its coastal neighbors, Reardon said, Norwell weathered the storm quite well.
"We had a couple of chimney fires and wires were down, but that was it," he said.
Most of Norwell's fire trucks and equipment were sent to Scituate, Reardon said. He said he knew it was bad when the Norwell and Hanover fire stations went uncovered because all the fire apparatus in the two towns was sent to help Scituate, where a record-high storm surge was ravaging coastal homes and stranding residents.
"I'd never seen that happen before," he said.
At the Norwell station, the biggest challenge was keeping doorways and truck bays clear as the wind swept snowdrifts "as high as you could see," Reardon said.
"I wanted to do this for my career, and it was to me, being a young kid, wicked exciting," Reardon said. "I'm sure some of the older adults didn't think so, but to me it was fun."
Since then, Reardon has seen more storms, and disaster preparation has become a focal point of his career.
"The Blizzard of '78, the no-name storm of '91 and others created my love affair with big disasters," he said.