Okay, imagine it's winter time and you're outside playing in the snow. Suddenly, a big storm comes along and it starts snowing really hard. This snowstorm is so big and so strong that it lasts for a long time and covers everything in snow.
Well, that's kind of what happened in 1899 in America. A huge snowstorm called the Great Blizzard hit the eastern part of the country. It was so big that it lasted for several days and it snowed and snowed and snowed.
The snow was so deep that it covered people's houses and filled up the streets. People couldn't go anywhere because the snow was too deep and it was too hard to travel through it. It was also really cold, so people had to stay inside to keep warm.
Because of the blizzard, a lot of the things that people needed like food and water couldn't be delivered. So, people had to find ways to survive on their own. They had to melt snow to get water to drink and eat whatever food they had left.
It took a long time for things to get back to normal after the blizzard. It was a really hard time for a lot of people, but they were able to come together and help each other out. And they learned a lot about what it takes to survive during a big snowstorm like the Great Blizzard of 1899.