Many people in southern Alberta remember the storm of May 13-14, 1986. One Airdrie family will never forget it.
After driving home from his job in Calgary in the worst snowstorm he can remember at 8 p.m. on May 13, Steve Harris asked his pregnant wife Cindy if she thought she might go into labour that night.
“I said to her, ‘If you think this is going to happen tonight, we need to go now,’” said Harris, then 28 years old. “It was really heavy, wet snow and it looked like it was going to get worse and worse. I still haven’t seen anything quite like that before.”
When Cindy said she didn’t think the baby was on the way, Harris went to bed, only to be woken up at about 11 p.m. by his wife who said to him, “This is going to happen now.”
While trying not to wake up his seven and four-year-old sons Jordan and David, Harris called the RCMP and was told there is no way officers could get their cars on the roads. To make matters worse, the house had no power and no water.
According to Environment Canada, 28 centimetres of snow fell between May 13 and 14 at the airport in Calgary. Wind was estimated at 80 km/h and the storm was recorded as the worst spring snowstorm in Alberta history at the time.
“There was some panic because I attended the birth of the first two so I knew what would happen, but I was worried what we would do if there were any complications,” said Harris.
Cindy said she was concerned as well.
“I was worried because things can go wrong,” she said.
“We weren’t prepared to have a baby at home. I didn’t even have diapers, but she came really fast. It was instant, hard labour and if we got out on the roads, we wouldn’t have made it (to the hospital).”
After calling 911, Harris had more success and two ambulances were dispatched. One got stuck on Highway 567 but the other followed a grader to the house and arrived just before midnight. Six-pound, 14 ounce Stephanie was born at 12:22 a.m. on May 14.
“When the boys woke up in the morning, they said they could tell she was a little girl by her voice,” said Cindy.
There were a number of people in the house to celebrate the birth as the ambulance, a phone company truck and an utility repair truck that had followed the grader were all stuck in front of the home.
On the bright side, the next evening, when STARS Air Ambulance landed in front of the house to take mom and daughter to the hospital for a checkup, there were about 20 people ready to shovel the way to the helicopter, said Cindy.
“The amount of snow was just incredible,” she added.
“When we looked out the window, we couldn’t see our car, just the antenna. The snow was all the way to the top of our six-foot fence in the backyard. But the most incredible part of it all was the fact that the day before my sons were at a birthday party in shorts and T-shirts.
“I’ve learned since then not to pack up the winter clothing in the spring because anything can happen. Now my motto is ‘be prepared.’”
The family received even more attention when it was interviewed by CBC for a news story. All that attention has followed now 25-year-old Stephanie for her whole life.
“I’m referred to as the snow baby,” she said.
“I’m just grateful my parents didn’t name me Snowy or something.”
Stephanie still lives in Airdrie and recently bought a house with her partner Clayton Lynn. She works for the federal government in an office in downtown Calgary and will have her first child in August.
“Let’s hope I can make it to the hospital and my baby doesn’t have the same kind of birth story I did,” she said.
Cindy said the family now looks back on the incident and laughs and is close friends with many people they met that night including one of the paramedics that delivered Stephanie.
“We met people we are still friends with when neighbours started coming over to make sure we were OK,” said Cindy.
“Everyone still knows and talks about that snowstorm, so Steph is famous.”
