Big preparations had been afoot for weeks for Mardi Gras celebrations across south Louisiana in 1899. It was to be especially festive because Mardi Gras fell on Valentine’s Day that year. Nobody anticipated that what may have been the worst blizzard ever to hit the state would undo it all.
February 14, 1899, remains to this day south Louisiana’s coldest Mardi Gras on record, and the chill that…