Epic Houston Snowstorms: Five Terrifying Videos of Armageddon Through the Years

The forecasters have issued their grim decrees: Houston will get smothered Friday by a massive snow storm. Accumulations of over an inch are possible, if your mind can wrap itself around the idea of such carnage.

Houston, of course, is well familiar with such snowstorms. YouTube provides the evidence of five natural disasters.

1. 2008: "This is Houston, Texas"
The awe-inspiring footage here begins as so many videos of Houston blizzards do, with the following description of the heavy precipitation: "I don't know if the camera can see it...."

4. 1973, the Bunker Hill area
Try to turn your eyes away from this devastation, as more than one-eighth of an inch of snow lands on the poverty-stricken homes of Bunker Hill. Actually, don't turn your eyes away, because the home-movie footage is silent.

Oh, youngster pictured next to the snowman, if somehow you survived this raging blizzard, please let us know.

3. 2009: Seven minutes of hell
Can you make it through all seven minutes of this frightening footage? We know we couldn't. Maybe it was the long discussion of the plants in the garage that did us in.

2. 2008, minimalist-style
This, on the other hand, lasts all of eight seconds. Incredibly enough, it uses much of those eight seconds panning over to the snow.

1. 1989: Desolation in normally bustling Alief
"I'm at a shopping center in Alief, where normally on this Friday afternoon before Christmas this place would be busy with shoppers and people having a bite out to eat here." Alief: The city that never sleeps. Be sure to stick around for the 1:50 mark, where they show us views of the Loop, "where we have seen the traffic get worse and worse by the minute," as a perfectly clear road is shown.