Winter is coming to the Northeast. As the potentially "crippling and historic" blizzard threatens to dump several feet of snow from Washington, D.C. to Maine, we turned to the Popular Science archives for advice.
In February 1963, the magazine gave some helpful hints on how to survive if a blizzard traps you in your car. Most of these involved dismantling your vehicle and wearing the pieces, including:
- Make snowshoes from the fiberboard in your car door
- Tear down ceiling lining to make face-masks and mukluks
- Turn upholstery padding into warm boots. Very fashionable!
- Light your spare tire on fire. Here's how:
Fill a hubcap with gas by disconnecting the fuel line at the carburetor and pressing the starter. Dump the gas on the tire to start a long-lasting and bright signal fire.
While we don't recommend lighting things on fire, maybe some of those other tips could turn out to be helpful. Who knows? And now for some 21st-century advice:
- Make sure your phone is charged before you head out
- If you get stuck, stay in the car
- Keep moving to stay warm
- Make sure the tailpipe isn't buried, so deadly deadly carbon monoxide doesn’t build up in the car
- Turn on the engine every now and then to stay warm
But the best advice, really, is to avoid driving in a blizzard in the first place. Stay safe everyone!
Business Insider does not recommend you actually do this, and we doubt Popular Science would either.
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