Buffalo Digs Out, Braces for Second Blast

The snow is about to fall again in Buffalo, ending a brief respite from a storm of historic and unexpected proportions that shocked a city that prides itself on bearing down in the face of winter. City and county officials were granted just a few hours to assess the storm’s damage before they had to begin preparing for the second round, which is expected to dump as much as two more feet by this time tomorrow.

So far, the butcher’s bill in Western New York has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Local officials thought Tuesday night’s storm would bring about 30 inches of snow; in fact, it dumped between 57 and 65 inches in a remarkably short period of time, mostly concentrated in the suburban towns just south of Buffalo.

At least six people have died so far, some by cardiac arrest from shoveling. At least one succumbed to exposure after his car was stranded.

Because the cold front interacted with Lake Erie’s warmer waters, a massive band of snow hit the southern cities of Erie County with astonishing rapidity, leaving dozens of motorists immobile on surface roads and along the New York State Thruway. Emergency workers spent hours finding drivers and walking them to shelters.

Every school in Buffalo was closed today. According to C. Douglas Hartmayer, director of public affairs for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 14 bus routes in the Buffalo metropolitan area were shut down due to the snow. In addition, while the Buffalo International Airport had kept its runways snow-free, airline companies canceled 40 flights because they decided the roads leading to the airport were simply too perilous to travel on. Roughly 3,700 passengers had their flights delayed or canceled.

Now, city, county and transportation officials are working overtime to clear the roads before the next storm hits. According to Peter Anderson, spokesman for Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, stranded cars have impeded the county’s efforts to plow snow from the roads. As a result, the county has maintained travel bans for a number of towns and villages, including Lackawanna, Alden, Aurora, Hamburg, Cheektowaga, Lancaster, West Seneca, and others.

“The snow came on so heavy and so fast that there are a number of abandoned vehicles just stuck on the roads,” Anderson said. “So the more people don’t go out, the easier our job is.”

In the meantime, Anderson said, the county has deployed 38 snow plows and 20 high lifts to clear the county’s roads, and the New York State Department of Transportation has committed roughly 160 plows and 15 high lifts to assist in the effort. While the county is currently treating every road as an equal priority, officials have been passing over in helicopters in an attempt to figure out which roads need the most attention. All county offices and services will remain open, Anderson concluded—just please stay out of the way until this crisis is over.

“It’s mostly keeping people off the roads,” he said. “There’s more snow coming, so we need everyone to cooperate.”

Meanwhile, C. Douglas Hartmayer expects tomorrow’s flights to be as delayed as today’s were. “The airlines don’t want people to risk their lives trying to catch a flight,” he said. “A number of airlines have made those decisions that will be in effect well into tomorrow.”

According to Hartmayer, Southwest Airlines has canceled all but two flights through 4 p.m. tomorrow, and U.S. Air and American have canceled all flights through early Thursday morning. United Airlines has canceled or continued flights on a case-by-base basis. The total number of stranded passengers, he concluded, will roughly equal Wednesday’s: 3,700 people without a place to fly to.

Hartmeyer can’t help but marvel at the magnitude of the storm, adding that Western New York doesn’t quite know what to expect next. “This is truly an anomaly,” he said. “The amount of snow that has fallen in so short a time in such a compact area is remarkable.”