Agilish

If you want to understand what it means to truly know your user, look no further than the Blizzard of 1979 and the political career of Jane Byrne — Chicago's first and only female mayor. I was not living in Chicago when Jane was mayor, but I have heard the Blizzard of '79 story more times than I can count from people who were. It is one of those pieces of Chicago lore that never gets old. What Actually Happened In January of 1979, Chicago was buried under record snowfall — nearly 90 inches for the entire season, the most ever recorded. The city was not prepared. Mayor Michael Bilandic's administration bungled the response badly. Plows were slow to deploy. The CTA — already overwhelmed — began bypassing stops in predominantly Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides in an attempt to speed up service downtown. Buses that normally took 30 minutes were taking hours. Residential streets sat unplowed for days. Garbage piled up. Schools closed. The city that famous...