I was 5 in 78, we lived in Montgomery County Pa just outside of far northeast Philadelphia. When my dad was home from trucking he worked for the local Gulf station running their tow trucks, had a Holmes 750 on a 1971 6500 GMC (among one other tow truck and two roll-backs.) They had the tow contract for Lower Moreland Township (Huntingdon Valley.) He would chain up that 6500 and he swore it would go anywhere. He said he spent about 28 or 30 hours in that truck pulling people out of ditches and winching them up hills or clearing roads before he finally gave up to sleep.
I remember the blizzard of 1996- I was a rookie Federal Firefighter at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster Pa. I was stuck there for 5 days straight. (1- my own 24hr shift. 2- Forced for 24, blizzard. 3- my own 24 shift. 4- repaid a shift exchange. 5- my own 24) By the end of day 3 we were running out of food. The Navy XO gave us permission to enter the Commissary and take food as long as we kept careful records of what we took. He picked up the tab out of his pocket a few days later. The base itself was closed. We ran several calls out to housing, which was about a 2.5 mile ride. The telesqurt pumper was chained up but the long wheelbase dragged around snow banked corners and got stuck often. We ran one medical call that was a kid having a bad asthma attack and the ambulance couldn't get in, so we loaded up the mom and kid in the cab and trucked them out to the main drag to meet the ambulance. I hate being a firefighter in snow, ice and cold.