Buffalo, New York, has been devastated by a deadly snowstorm since the 2010 Winter Storm that killed 13 people: the first number of deaths

The people of the city of Buffalo are concerned with life safety and making way for emergency services while enduring a deadly winter storm which has dumped much of the United States with heavy snow.

The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. The National Weather Service said most of the US population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.

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.

Erie County includes Buffalo, which has at least 34 people who have died because of the storm. Buffalo was the location of most deaths, with seven found in suburbs, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. Three of those who died have yet to be identified.

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

The Executive of Erie County, Mark Poloncarz believes that the storm is the worst he has seen in his community’s history.

Two people died in their home in New York on Friday when emergency crews were unable to get there in time to help them, he said.

We have to take you to a warming center if we want to pick up everybody. Poloncarz said that they don’t have the ability to do that. “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 help, they spent hours with the engine running in their vehicle which was nearly buried in snow.

By 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. 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.

“If I stay in this car, I’m going to die with my kids and I think they had to try to do it,” he said. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

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Nationwide, around 90,000 customers were without power early Monday, according to PowerOutage. The US. Since the start of the storm, the number of outages has at times exceeded a million customers.

As of Monday morning, about 183,000 customers were still without heat and lights, down from a peak of 1.7 million earlier in the week, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.

There is Ohio. Nine people have died as a result of weather-related auto crashes, including four in a Saturday morning crash on Interstate 75, when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and collided with an SUV and a pickup, authorities said.

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.

Terry and Rick Henderson had to stay in a rig with a diesel appliance and a toilet, as they were stuck in traffic for 34 hours on I-71 to get to their home in Ohio for Christmas.

But conditions were improving and the lake-effect snowfall has finally stopped, he noted. Warm temperatures are in the forecast for at least the next seven days, with Buffalo seeing a high in the upper 30s on Wednesday and the 40s through the weekend.

Vivian Robinson of Spirit of Truth Urban Ministry in Buffalo said she and her husband have been sheltering and cooking for 60 to 70 people, including stranded travelers and locals without power or heat, who were spending Saturday night 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.

Robinson said that the opening of the church gave the group a sense of relief because they thought they were not going to make it. “Those who are here are really enjoying themselves. The Christmas is going to be different for everyone.

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The snow is thick in many towns and cities. In 24 hours, Baraga, Michigan and Henderson Harbor, New York each got 40.8 inches of snow.

The accessibility for the firefighters is affected by the hundreds of vehicles abandoned in the snow, hazardous driving conditions, and snow-covered lanes.

Mark Poloncarz, executive director of Erie County, commented on the rescue team during a news conference on Sunday. Many of New York’s weather-related fatalities were in Erie County, where some people were found dead in cars and on the street in snowbanks, he said.

Hundreds of National Guard troops have been deployed to help with rescue efforts in New York. State police had been involved in over 500 rescues by Sunday, including delivering a baby and helping a man with 4% left on his mechanical heart, the governor said.

“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.

“Our state and county plows have been out there, nonstop, giving up time and putting themselves in danger, driving through blinding snowstorms to clear the roads,” Hochul said.

As blistering blizzard conditions swept the region, about 500 motorists found themselves stranded in their vehicles Friday night into Saturday morning, according to Poloncarz, who described frightening conditions on the road.

“Think about looking just a few feet in front of you at a sheet of white for more than 24 hours in a row. He said it was similar to outside in the worst conditions. “It was continual blizzard and white outs such that no one could see where they were going. Nobody had a clue what was happening.

While abandoned vehicles pepper the snow covered roadway, the conditions are also difficult inside homes.

Hochul said at the press conference that some residents have stayed in their homes for 56 hours without power. This isn’t due to a lack of resources, but rather a challenge faced by utility companies according to the governor.

Still, there were 12,000 homes and businesses in Erie County without power Sunday evening, and many won’t have lights and heating back until Tuesday, Poloncarz said.

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

The storm snarled travel in the US during the busy holiday weekend, with more than 5,000 flights canceled Friday, more than 3,400 flights canceled Saturday and more than 3,100 canceled on Christmas.

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Colorado: Police in Colorado Springs reported two deaths related to the cold since Thursday, with one man found near a power transformer of a building possibly looking for warmth, and another in a camp in an alleyway.

Buffalo remains under a winter weather advisory until Tuesday afternoon, with the possibility of up to 7 more inches of snowfall. However, temperatures will be slightly higher than they have been in previous days, with a high of 30 degrees in the daytime and a low of 26 at night.

travel conditions will remain hazardous for the next few days and are expected to gradually improve over the coming week.

The rest of the country will be in a deep freeze through Monday, with a trend of warmer weather to come on Tuesday.

For the past six days a blast of polar air has wreaked havoc on holiday travel plans as it wreaked havoc across the country, causing power outages, canceled flights, and dangerous roads.

Buffalo Mayor Brown told Morning Edition that his city’s emergency responders have been going car by car to perform rescues of stranded motorists.

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

“That number is now below 10,000, and we will continue to work aggressively and strategically with National Grid all day today to continue to reduce that number and get everyone’s power restored,” he added, referring to the local utility.

New York State Highway Safety and Road Safety Laws for Emergency Vehicles During a Snowstorm in Erie and Lackawanna on Tuesday

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.

The NWS still advises caution for anyone looking to venture outside: High wind speeds and low temperatures are a recipe for frostbite, which can take root in less than 10 minutes of exposure.

As crews continue to dig out vehicles drowning in snow-covered roads and highways, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed the importance of abiding by local and state driving bans in place in Western New York. During the overnight hours, a driving ban is in effect for Buffalo, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga.

Hochul said that there are scores and scores of cars that were left abandoned during the storm. She said it is still dangerous to be out.

There were 27 deaths reported in Erie County, three of which were attributed to an Emergency Medical Services Delay, and officials expect the death toll to go up.

It’s been a challenge to get the lights back on as utility crews are facing dangerous weather conditions that make getting to the substations hard.

Hochul said Monday that the state has stockpiled ready-to-eat meals and “thousands” are ready to be distributed to food banks but noted that road conditions are paralyzing aid efforts.

All of these resources have a responsibility to us. When mother nature shuts down, creates a wall that can’t be seen by the eye, it is not safe, for emergency vehicles, but the trucks that are carrying groceries to the stores and the stores are being shut down anyhow – that is the paralysis we are experiencing.

The governor submitted a request to President Joe Biden for a federal emergency declaration for Erie and Genesee counties, which “will be crucial to assist our recovery efforts from this historic storm,” she said.

Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County Executive, said that the city of Buffalo was an “impassABLE” place to live.

He mentioned that people were trying to drive around it in little Honda Civics while dump trucks were trying to scoop up the snow.

While Tuesday’s forecast seems like nothing compared to the 4 feet of snow that fell in some places over the last few days, officials say it will have an impact as responders work to clear streets.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that the weather system that dumped 49 inches of snow in Buffalo was one for the ages.

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The U.S. Department of Transportation stated it would look at whether cancelations were controllable and called them unacceptable.

People who were stuck in their vehicles passed away in their cars. We have people that were walking during blizzard conditions and passed away on the street, passed away in snowbanks,” Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown said. “And we have people that were found that passed away in their homes.”

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 losing contact with her, the family posted her location to a Buffalo Facebook page to ask for help, and a man called to say he found her and she had no pulse, her sister said.

The Brown family received a call from authorities on Monday evening to let them know they were ready to help the woman, but the body of the woman already had been removed from the car and taken to the hospital.

100 military police and additional troops from the NY State Police Department are going to be brought in to manage traffic control because it has become apparent that too many people are ignoring the ban, Poloncarz said.

• 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.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/weather/buffalo-winter-storm-new-york-blizzard-wednesday/index.html

New York City Police notified that eight people have been arrested in connection to snow loot during the first day of December 11th, 2010 storm

The National Weather Service said the risk of flooding is small and that melting snow alone rarely causes flooding. It should take about one inch of rain from this system before flooding becomes a concern, according to the weather service.

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.”

Hochul said that the major highways in Western New York were open by Tuesday, which was a sign that the storm was over.

As the roads are cleared officials are working to give fuel and groceries to emergency crews and markets.

“After the height of the storm, we were getting requests from local municipalities to help them with their trucks for diesel,” Poloncarz said. “And we were getting specialized deliveries to communities that may have been running out so that their trucks could stay on the road at all times.”

The officials responded to reports of loot. According to the Buffalo Police Department, as of Tuesday evening, eight people have been arrested in connection to suspected winter storm loot.

“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.”

Wellness Checks, Food Recommendations, and Erie County’s Travel Ban after the Wednesday Night Outage of the Buffalo Storm

The National Guard began conducting door-to-door wellness checks Wednesday morning in neighborhoods that lost power, Poloncarz said. The checks will continue for 48 hours.

There are people who don’t have power who are living alone, or those who are not doing well in an establishment that doesn’t have power.

A majority of the city’s streets have at least one lane for travel. Poloncarz said that Erie County hoped to clear at least one lane in all city roads by the end of the day.

The worst of the storm seems to have passed, as temperatures in Buffalo rose to 40 degrees Wednesday afternoon and are expected to reach the low 50s by Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

Those with a power interruption of more than 72 hours are able to receive reimbursements 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 are emerging about the city’s storm preparations and the timing of Erie County’s travel ban last Friday. The ban was issued at 9:30 a.m. due to the storm, but families of the deceased are confused as to why it was not issued earlier. The rain turned to snow as the temperatures dropped.