Thirty years ago today–March 12, 1993–it began to snow in Lawrence County and across most of the eastern United States. When the day ended on March 14, hurricane-force winds had dumped record amounts of snow across the country.

The Blizzard of ’93, as the storm is called, cost the United States 33 lives, more than $8.7 billion in damage, and left millions without power. Mount Le Conte, Tennessee saw a baffling 56 inches of snow.

Although the worst of the storm was south, east, and northeast of Lawrence County, the NOAA Regional Climate Center estimates that Lawrence County saw between three and six inches of snow that weekend, and some local people went without electricity for several days.

As the snow began to fall on March 12, an unusual meeting began at the Lawrence County Courthouse. About 20 Amish men showed up to share their concerns about proposed legislation with the county commission’s safety committee and Lawrence County’s state representative. The proposed bill would have required strobe lights to be placed on alhorse-drawnl vehicles in Tennessee.

The purpose of the bill was to make the buggies more visible at night to motorists, but the men who gathered at the courthouse while the snow continued to fall outside saw the proposal as a threat to their religious liberties. The Old Order Amish of Lawrence County use no gas or electric-powered vehicles and travel exclusively by horse.

As Amish Bishop Eli Stuzman told the committee that night, “We are trying to follow what our forefathers have taught us. We ain’t going to put them on our buggies. We’ll take jail before we pay any fine.” Another Amish man who was present for the meeting reiterated Stuzman’s sentiment when he said that he would “rot in jail” before he placed a strobe light on his buggy.

The committee had considered postponing its meeting due to the developing weather situation, but they had no way of quickly notifying the Amish men who had planned to attend, none of whom had access to television or radio.

In Lawrence County, the Blizzard of ’93 is sometimes confused with the Ice Storm of 1994 which occurred less than a year later. The Ice Storm of 1994 caused much more widespread damage to the local power grid.

The photos attached are screenshots from home video made by Iler Mae Alley in Deerfield, western Lawrence County on March 13, 1993. The blizzard occurred on Iler Mae and husband Chester Alley’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.