The winter of 1979 is one of the hardest winters ever and also very fickle because of the alternation of thaw and frost. The road and air traffic suffer from the black ice and the following snow storms. Especially in the northern provinces the train service had to be limited, mainly because of the nuisance caused by blowing snow. In the countryside of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe several villages become completely isolated from the outside world because of several meters high snow dunes. Soldiers were used to clear the snow and help the inhabitants of the snowed-in villages. SHOTS: - black and white: blowing snow on the road; several shots of cars that have gone off the road; man at a snowed-in emergency-telephone of the ANWB; snowed-in cars; bulldozer with a snow-shoveller tries to clear the road of snow; a car is being towed; snow at Schiphol Airport; clearing the snow off the platforms at Schiphol Airport with bulldozers and off the taxiways and runways by snow suckers; snow and ice is cleared off an airplane; railway tracks covered in snow; people aiting on the platform; railroad switches are defrosted; view of the tracks covered in snow from a moving train; train moves through the snow landscape; drafted soldiers with shovels in the train; soldiers clearing snow at the snowed-in train station Visvliet; large heaps of snow near a village; a house is covered under blowing snow; kitchen of the house with snow piled halfway of the window; close up of the coal stove with a coal scuttle; - aerial shots (in color): snowed-in farm; road coverd in snow with stuck cars; icebreakers in the Wadden Sea; a truck with snow shoveller clearing snow off the road; red train in snow landscape; people in a snowed-in village wave at a helicopter.