The next time you start whining about a few inches of snow, ask someone who lived through the Blizzard of '78 to tell you about the storm that dumped up to 4 feet in places and took lives, made sidewalks impassable for days, stranded cars, and destroyed homes. It happened 30 years ago this week.

At left, skiers on Summer Street in Boston Feb. 6, 1978, the day the blizzard began.