Buffalo’s Storm “It was a very devastating storm,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, M.D., A.C., Sept. 11, 1977

Buffalo’s mayor said the storm “is a very devastating and difficult storm, unlike anything that even the city of Buffalo is used to.”

Two people died in their homes in New York on Friday and another died in Buffalo, when emergency crews didn’t have the time to get to them.

This storm, however, was more ferocious than the blizzard of 1977, Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz said. It was horrible for 24 hours on top of that.

The dangerous weather conditions made it difficult for emergency crews to respond to calls for help. Even ambulances were getting stuck in the snow and were among hundreds of vehicles that had to be abandoned.

Across the US, 275,856 homes and businesses in the US had no electricity service as of 1 a.m. ET, many of them in Maine and New York, according to PowerOutage.us. At times the number of customers without power has exceeded a million.

The struggle was complicated by drivers ignoring travel ban and becoming stuck or stranded in traffic.

Buffalo Niagara Airport Closed Friday Night After a High-Current Decay and the First Day of the Fourth Broke Winter Air Shower

The Buffalo Niagara International Airport, which closed Friday due to “hazardous weather conditions” and saw 43 inches of snow, is expected to remain closed until late Wednesday morning, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority said on Twitter. The news release stated that the Pittsburgh International Airport will be assisting with reopening the airfield at Buffalo Airport.

“Everyone is like, ‘Oh, you’re from Buffalo, you’re used to this,’” said Tommy Bellonte, 37, who briefly emerged from his Buffalo home Saturday morning to check on a neighbor. “But you can’t get used to this.”

A blast of polar air from Canada has left a trail of power losses, canceled flights, and dangerous roads across the country for the last six days.

On Christmas Eve, the temperature in New York City plummeted to record lows, including JFK and LaGuardia airports. The high at Central Park was 15 degrees, marking its second-coldest December 24 in at least 150 years, according to the National Weather Service.

Some residents of beachfront areas in New York City also faced the prospect of leaving home for Christmas, after Friday’s storm surge caused heavy flooding in the Rockaways, swamping basement apartments, said Donovan Richards Jr., the Queens borough president.

Fourteen deaths were attributed to the storm, 12 of them in traffic accidents. In Castleton, Vt., a 51-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree, local police confirmed. The Cook County medical examiner’s spokeswoman said that a 54-year-old man died of cold in the Chicago area. The mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, said that a homeless person died trying to set a fire to keep warm.

As the cold tightened its grip, cities and towns opened warming shelters in fire stations and school gymnasiums, and residents sought shelter, some after spending Friday night in unheated homes, huddled under blankets and clustered around fireplaces in the dark.

On Friday the Moncrief’s lived in an apartment in south Nashville without power and tried to sleep in sweaters and blankets. Too cold to rest, they moved into their car at 2 a.m., and at 6 a.m., relocated to her mother’s house.

Con Edison Asks New York City Customers to Conserve Energy During the December Snow Event: Frank Anderson, 50, and his family in Tonawanda, North Carolina

The storm wreaked havoc on travel in the US during the busy holiday weekend, with more than 5000 flights canceled in the US on Friday, and 3700 flights canceled Saturday and more than 3100 canceled on Christmas Day. At least 1,200 flights within and out of the US have been canceled by 4:00 a.m. Monday.

Travelers were supposed to spend Christmas Eve at La Guardia Airport, but more than 50 flights were canceled in the morning.

The Ellis’ arrived at the airport at 3 a.m. with their children. Hours later, their flight was canceled, and each member of the family was rebooked on a different flight, said Mr. Ellis.

The family decided to rent a car instead and drive 14 hours to their home in Nashville. The cost would be hefty, Mr. Ellis said, but he did not mind paying it.

As darkness fell in Western New York on Saturday and temperatures crept even lower, thousands of utility workers and plow drivers faced another long night of work to restore power and clear roads. With snow forecast to continue, and travel bans still in effect, stores were empty of last-minute shoppers, and streets mostly silent.

Frank Anderson, 50, was stuck in deep snow in his large white pickup truck on Saturday for the second time since wrapping up his shift as a prison guard.

Still wearing his work jacket with a New York State Corrections and Community Supervision emblem on his left sleeve and with only a spare sweater in the back seat, he found his truck jammed along Hertel Avenue, his tires spinning on ice, as he attempted to make it back to his wife and three children in time for Christmas. He was about “a mile from home” in the suburb of Tonawanda.

He said he was going to miss Christmas with his family because of the unplowed road and heat that was still running.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/24/us/winter-storm-snow-weather/con-edison-asks-new-york-city-customers-to-conserve-energy

PJM Interconnection, New York City, and Jackson, Mississippi, are under driving bans during the deep snow storm on Saturday and Sunday

Euan Ward , Eliza Fawcett , Isabella Grullón Paz , Bob Chiarito, Jamie McGee, Ellen Yan, April Rubin, Sharon Dunten and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed reporting.

Customers in 13 states in the eastern half of the country were asked to conserve power from Saturday to Sunday because of the strain on the power grid.

The operator, PJM Interconnection, serves about 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and warned rolling blackouts could happen if the strain becomes too much.

Meanwhile, a shortage of electricity in Texas prompted the US Department of Energy to declare an emergency Friday, allowing the state’s energy provider to exceed environmental emissions standards until energy usage drops.

In Jackson, Mississippi, frigid temperatures are hampering efforts to repair a large water main break late Saturday, which has caused a loss in water pressure for residents, city officials said.

The crews are braving the cold on the Christmas Eve night to restore pressure to the residents. Their sacrifice is appreciated not only by this administration but also by all residents who are affected by it, the release stated.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul reminded the public to obey state and local driving bans as they continued to dig out cars in the snow. Buffalo, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga all remain under driving bans during the overnight hours.

The National Guard was summoned to help rescue people from stuck vehicles and give rides to medical workers to relieve colleagues who were working for more than one day, Poloncarz said.

On the nature of the Great Lakes, the Great lakess, and the Great Analogues of the 1976 KOMO Blizzard

In Seattle, Washington, online videos have documented cars sliding on the icy roads and bumping into each and residents slipping as they walked on sidewalks, CNN affiliate KOMO reported.

Hochul said that he would be asking the government for a declaration of emergency so that they could seek reimbursements for the overtime that was done. We deployed individuals and utility crews came to make sure we have all the vehicles we need.

The governor calls the storm a once-in-a-generation storm, which has been compared to Buffalo’s famous blizzard of 1977 which left 23 people dead.

One person was found near a transformer in the middle of the night and another was found outside in an alley, both related to the cold.

Lingering lake-effect snows blowing downwind from the Great Lakes will slowly become less intense, but the Arctic air enveloping much of the eastern half of the nation will be slow to moderate, according to the National Weather Service.

The areas where the temperatures will be in the teens and low 20s are potentially killing crops and damaging plumbing. Most of these warnings are set to end by Monday morning as temperatures start to come back from the polar air.

People who work outside and pets are at risk of becoming stranded, due to the cold temperatures combined with dangerous wind chills, according to the National Weather Service.

As the frigid air continues to blast the warm waters of the Great Lakes, lake-effect snows and blizzard conditions are expected to continue, but slowly become less intense.

Still, strong gusty winds initially up to 60 mph accompanying the snow downwind from the Great Lakes will continue to make for extremely dangerous conditions on the road.

By Christmas night into Monday, another low pressure system coming from the Pacific will deliver the next surge of moisture toward the Pacific Northwest and then into northern California, according to the Weather Service.

Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

The Cold Buffalo Thing That Never Dies: Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, Walks Through the Adiabatic Doorways

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. Manahan said he couldn’t drive because he was stuck. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”

“We can’t just pick up everybody and take you to a warming center. We don’t have the ability to do that,” he said. “Many, many neighborhoods, especially in the city of Buffalo, are still impassable.”

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get assistance, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle covered in snow.

With their fuel almost gone, Ilunga had to savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay had to savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay savesay He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, stepping into his footprints as they trudged through drifts.

He thought that if he stayed in the car, he would die with his kids. He cried as the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

The Buffalo Christmas Lights Revisited: Winds, Ice, and Snow for stranded travelers and locals without power or heat

In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power Saturday afternoon, down from more than 485,000. Utility officials said rolling blackouts would continue for the next few days.

In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border were facing unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions preventing many from seeking asylum.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, weathered a 34-hour traffic jam in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator after getting stuck trying to drive from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.

But conditions were improving and the lake-effect snowfall has finally stopped, he noted. Buffalo is expected to see a high in the upper 30s on Wednesday and 40s on Saturday, with warmer weather predicted through the weekend.

A group of 60 to 70 people, including stranded travelers and locals without power or heat, have been at the church for the past few nights, said Robinson, who is also a pastor at the church.

Many arrived with ice and snow plastered to their clothes, crying, their skin reddened by the single-digit temperatures. On Saturday night, they prepared to spend Christmas together.

“It’s emotional just to see the hurt that they thought they were not going to make it, and to see that we had opened up the church, and it gave them a sense of relief,” Robinson said. Those who are here are having a good time. It’s going to be different for everyone.

Snow, Power Loss and Accessibility Issues in PJM and Western New York During the Eleventh Day of Blackouts

The 4 feet of snow that has fallen in some places over the last few days will have an impact on how responders respond, as they work to clear streets.

“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” said Poloncarz. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days.”

Communities from coast to coast have lost power over the course of the week, but the worst of rolling blackouts appeared to have subsided. PJM interconnection said it was able to meet the day’s demand after initially asking customers to conserve energy.

The temperature dropped below freezing for the first time in five years in Florida and Jackson, Mississippi officials ordered residents to boil their drinking water because of water lines bursting in the cold.

In Buffalo, William Kless was up at 3 a.m. Sunday. He rang his three children’s doorbell to wish them a Merry Christmas and then headed off on his snowmobile to help people stay warm in the cold.

He brought about 15 people to the church in Buffalo on Saturday through heavy, wind-driven snow. He also got a man in need of dialysis, who had spent 17 hours stranded in his car, back home, where he could receive treatment.

Parts of western New York have been buried in up to 43 inches of snow, leaving vehicles stuck and thousands of people without power for the Christmas weekend.

“We’re still in the throes of this very dangerous life-threatening situation,” Hochul said, urging residents to stay off the roads as a driving ban remains in place in Erie County through Monday.

Hochul said the state and county plows have been out there constantly, giving up their time and putting themselves in danger to clear the roads.

Imagine looking a few feet in front of yourself at a sheet of white for 24 hours in a row. He said it was like that in the worst conditions. “It was continual blizzard and white outs such that no one could see where they were going. Nobody was aware of what was happening.

Hundreds of vehicles abandoned in the snow, hazardous driving conditions and snow-covered lanes are creating accessibility issues for the firefighters and even emergency and recovery vehicles are getting stuck in snow, said Peter Anderson, Press Secretary for Poloncarz.

Some residents have been without power for 56 hours, Hochul said during the press conference. This is not due to lack of resources, but rather a challenge faced by utility companies, the governor said.

More than 10 million people were under freeze alerts across the South Monday, including residents in Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham.

Winter storm warnings remain in effect in New York for Buffalo, Jamestown and Watertown and will expire throughout the following couple of days. Buffalo could see as much as 14 inches of snow, while some areas could see as much as 3 feet. Winds could also gust up to 40 mph.

Much of the rest of the eastern part of the country will still be in a deep freeze through Monday before a moderating trend sets in on Tuesday, forecasters said.

A large percentage of the US population was faced with winter weather advisories over the holiday weekend. Drastically low temperatures stretched from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande.

The Buffalo Emergency Medical Service said the Buffalo Storm was a “once-in-a-Generation” and “It’s going to go up”

The mayor of Buffalo told NPR that emergency responders had gone by car to perform hundreds of rescues of stranded motorists.

Brown said that this has been called a “once-in-a- generation storm”. “It’s unlike anything that even the city of Buffalo is used to getting.”

“We will continue to work with National Grid all day to get everyone’s power restored and to reduce the number of customers that will be affected by that number,” he said.

The National Weather Service said conditions are expected to remain frigid and hazardous on Monday, but start to moderate on Tuesday then continue to slowly improve as the week moves ahead.

High wind speeds and low temperatures can be dangerous, which is why the NWS still advises caution.

“We have scores and scores of vehicles that were abandoned when people left during the storm,” Hochul said during a Monday news conference. “It is still a dangerous situation to be out,” she added.

I don’t have good feelings about that. I think the death toll is going to go up,” the sheriff said. “When you have 420 EMS calls that are unanswered, it’s just gut-wrenching.”

New York State Governor Kathy Hochul: The weather system that brought 49 inches of snow on Monday night and its impact on transportation and other local disaster relief efforts

The weather has made it difficult for utility crews to access the substations, so getting the lights back on was not an easy task.

Hochul said Monday that the state has ready-to- eat meals for anyone who wants them, but that aid efforts are being hampered by road conditions.

It is our responsibility to have all these resources on hand. When mother nature shuts down and causes a wall that you cannot see beyond, it is not safe for not only emergency vehicles but the trucks that are bringing groceries to the stores and the stores are being shutdown anyhow, Hochul said.

President Biden approved an emergency disaster declaration for the state Monday night and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support local disaster relief efforts.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called the city of Buffalo “impassable,” detailing numerous abandoned cars scattered across roads in all directions.

“We have huge dump trucks that are trying to scoop the snow and people trying to drive around in little Honda Civics because the abandoned vehicles are blocking the street,” he said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has described the weather system that brought 49 inches of snow over three days at Buffalo Niagara International Airport “one for the ages.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation called the cancellations, delays and customer service response “unacceptable,” and said it would examine whether the cancellations were controllable.

The Buffalo area after a snowstorm last week: A hiker, a pedestrian, and an unidentified pedestrian found dead in their homes

Some families in the Buffalo area have still not found their missing loved ones, he said, as devastating accounts continue to emerge of residents being found dead in snowbanks, trapped in their cars or in their homes. One Buffalo mother went out on Christmas Eve, telling her daughter that she’d be right back, only for her body to be found a few hundred feet from their home.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said Monday that there were hundreds of unanswered calls for help as the storm slammed into the area, and as conditions improve, officials were focusing on welfare checks and getting people to hospitals as the roads are cleared.

After she lost contact, the family posted her location to a Buffalo Facebook page, and a man called them to say he found her, but she didn’t have a pulse.

By the time authorities called the Brown family back on Monday evening to let them know they were ready to go out and rescue the woman, her body had already been removed from the car and transported to the hospital, the family said.

Mark Poloncarz, Erie County Executive, said that a driving ban remained in effect in Buffalo despite a two-day effort to clear at least one lane on every street.

The military police and additional troops from the New York State Police Department will be brought in by the county to control traffic, as many people are ignoring the ban.

New Hampshire. A hiker was found dead in Franconia on Christmas morning, Lt. James Kneeland, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said.

Authorities are preparing for flooding as the snow melts, but the NWS predicts the flooding will only be minor “depending on how much rain occurs this weekend.”

Still, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Daniel Neaverth said city officials are working with the National Weather Service “not only to reflect back on what happened this past week, but also what potentially could come.”

The major highways in western New York were open by Tuesday, Hochul said.

Officials were working to coordinate fuel deliveries to emergency crews and grocery supplies to the markets after roads are cleared.

Local municipalities requested assistance with the purchase of diesel after the height of the storm. We were getting specialized deliveries so that the trucks would stay on the road at all times.

Officials have also been responding to reports of looting. As of Tuesday evening, eight people have been arrested in Buffalo in connection to suspected winter storm looting, according to a tweet from the Buffalo Police Department.

“It is horrible that while residents of our community have died in this storm that people are out looting,” Mayor Brown said, but noted “this is a minority of individuals.”

Erie County Transportation Plan and Preparedness for an Emerging Snowstorm in the Buffalo, NY, Area After the Decay of the Grand Central Bank

The National Guard began its door-to-door checks on Wednesday morning in the neighborhoods that lost power. The checks will continue for 48 hours.

Poloncarz said that they were worried about the possibility of people dying living alone or two people not doing well in an establishment.

Only a few streets have more than one lane available for passage. Erie County hopes to clear at least one lane in all city roads for emergency travel by the end of the day, Poloncarz said.

The eastern U.S. will get higher than expected temperatures in the next two weeks, according to the National Weather Service. Buffalo is predicted to reach the low 50s by Friday.

Those in New York who have power out for 72 hours or more can be reimbursed for spoiled food or prescription medication. People must request reimbursements to power companies like National Grid within 14 days of the outage, Poloncarz said.

Questions about the city’s storm preparations have arisen, as well as the timing of the Erie County travel ban. The ban was imposed at 9:30 a.m. because of the winter storm, but families are asking why it wasn’t issued earlier. The rain turned to snow, as temperatures dropped dramatically.

39 people have perished in the Buffalo, NY, area due to the winter storm and officials are going to try toclear snowed-in streets and lift a driving ban.

The Buffalo Winter Storm, New York Flooding, and a “Full-Way Out” of Buffalo, N.C., on Wednesday

“Hundreds of very large pieces of equipment will still be out clearing streets from curb-to-curb,” Poloncarz tweeted Wednesday night. Caution must be exercised while walking or driving.

The historic weekend blizzard dumped up to 50 inches of snow on the city and created days worth of cleanup and recovery efforts, which included plowing snow from roadways, restoring electricity and completing more than 1,000 backlogged welfare checks and 911 calls.

The coming days may bring new frustration to city and Erie County officials as the temperatures may reach as high as 50 degrees next week and melting snow could be joined by rain on Saturday and Tuesday. The combined rain and snowmelt could result in minimal flooding, according to the National Weather Service.

Erie County officials say they are preparing for the flood threat by digging drainage ditches so the snow melt is more gradual. There is also a lot of equipment in place.

One contracted Buffalo EMT told CNN she was stuck in her ambulance for hours Friday as she tried to respond to a call. Joycelyn Benton said the main reason they got stuck was because there were cars in the way.

The travel ban should have already been instituted and used to keep cars off the street earlier. Two-thirds of the equipment dispatched to help clear snow during the height of the storm got stuck, Poloncarz has said.

Still, Poloncarz has defended the timing of the driving ban, saying county leaders wanted to give third-shift workers enough time to get home. He said that the rule was in place before whiteout conditions began and that they wished they had done it an hour or two before.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/weather/buffalo-winter-storm-new-york-flooding-friday/index.html

A mourning father killed by a family in the East End of the Great Smokeball Field, Elk Grove, Wisconsin, discovered by Rodolph and his wife

Among those found dead in Erie County were an expectant father just days from the birth of his child, a 22- year-old who became trapped in her car, and a grandmother whose body was moved so it wouldn’t be snowed on.

The family was worried about Robinson when they couldn’t contact him on Friday but they didn’t have a clue where he was. Finally, the family reached the coroner’s office on Wednesday and found out his body had been brought in on Sunday, Rodolph said.

“Such a lovely person has been taken out of our lives,” Rodolph said. The loveliest, sweetest and most lovable person you will ever meet was him.