KYW Flashback: SEPTA Strike Leaves Thousands Stranded

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It was anything but a typical March day in 1977. KYW Newsradio listeners set clock radios earlier to find out how they would get to work and school. No. A big snow event wasn't in the forecast. A looming SEPTA strike was.

When those radios powered up, worst fears were realized. Nearly 5,000 members of the Transport Workers Union were walking picket lines at bus yards. Subways were abandoned. The strike of "77" became the bitterest, most costly and the longest in SEPTA's troubled history.

The walkout lasted for 44 days.

In a twist on KYW traffic reporting for transit strikes, a reporter went to the roof of a city skyscraper to describe congestion as the Schuylkill Expressway emptied into Center City. It was a morning of high winds. The reporter told our audience. "It's so windy up here folks, that a Greek tanker just sank in my coffee." That was about the only bit of levity heard for the next 44 days.