Buffalo, the first suburbs of Buffalo, have been shut down by a snowstorm and snow storms since April 1, 2015, the Post-Newtonian state of Buffalo

There were many unpleasant things that happened in Buffalo and its first-ring suburbs last month, including the death of dozens of people in a snowstorm, and the closing of businesses and roads with disabled vehicles.

The storm’s breadth has been unprecedented, extending from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

A bomb cyclone, which is when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm, has developed near the Great Lakes, causing heavy winds and snow.

The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded — and shutting down the airport through Monday, according to officials.

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. You cannot be out for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.

New York City Councilor Mark Poloncarz: “I couldn’t just pick up everybody and drop them off, but they were stuck on the side of the road”

The snowstorm was more powerful than the 1977 storm, said Mark Poloncarz, Erie County executive. It was terrible for 24 hours in a row.

Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, he said, and another died in Buffalo.

“We can’t just pick up everybody and take you to a warming center. We don’t have the capability of doing that,” Poloncarz said. The city of Buffalo has many neighborhoods that are still difficult to navigate.

On his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario for Christmas with his daughters, Ditjak Ilunga and his SUV were trapped on the side of the road. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle buffeted by wind and nearly buried in snow.

With their fuel almost gone, Ilunga made a choice to shelter in a nearby building rather than risk being caught in the storm. Cindy cradled their puppy as they walked through the snow, while he carried the 6 year old on his back.

He thought he was going to die with his children if he stayed in the car. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

Christmas in Buffalo: A New Road for Staggered Travelers and Those Without Power or Heat, or Is It Going to Be Down?

There were 273,000 customers with no power in New England on Saturday. Some utilities said that the electricity may not be restored for a while.

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.

Four people were killed in a pileup on the Ohio tollbooth, four people were killed in crashes in Missouri and Kansas, and an Ohio utility worker was killed by a falling branch.

Many migrants at the U.S. border are waiting on a Supreme Court decision on whether or not to allow them to seek asylum.

Terry Henderson and her husband Rick were stuck in traffic on I-71 in Kentucky for more than 33 hours, and were able to find a new way to get to their home for Christmas.

In Erie County, 38.6 inches of snow had accumulated at the Buffalo Airport and it was well over the 6 feet (2.74 meters) allowed for by the law. Blizzard conditions were expected to ease early Sunday, he continued, but continuing lake effect snow was forecast.

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 of them arrived with their clothes covered with ice and snow, crying and reddened. On Christmas night they were going to be together.

Robinson said, “It was emotional to see the hurt they felt that they were not going to make it, and to see we had opened the church and it gave them a sense of relief.” People who are here are enjoying themselves. It’s going to be a different Christmas for everyone.”

New York City Mayor Byron Brown: “It is still dangerous to be out” during the first snow-covered storm in 20 years. The New York Governor Kathy Hochul

The blast of cold air from Canada has been a nightmare for holiday travel plans as it wreaks havoc across the country, leaving power outages, canceled flights and dangerous roads.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told NPR’s Morning Edition that his city’s emergency responders have gone “car by car” to perform hundreds of 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.”

“Today we will continue to work with National Grid to keep the number below 10,000 and we will get everyone’s power restored,” he said, referring to the local utility.

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 storm resulted in the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights in the US, as well as 3,400 flights on Saturday and over 3100 on Christmas.

The NWS still cautions against venturing outside because high wind speeds and low temperatures can cause frostbite in less than 10 minutes.

“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.

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. The driving bans are in place for Buffalo, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga.

Of the 27 deaths reported in Erie County, three were attributed to an EMS Delay, while others involved people who were outside, in cars, had no heating or suffered cardiac arrest – and the death toll is still expected to rise, officials have said.

The Buffalo City Council is Providing Emergency Services for the Recovery from a Weather Event in Baraga, Las Vegas, and Henderson Harbor, New York

And getting the lights back on has been no easy task, as utility crews are faced with dangerous weather conditions that made accessing the substations difficult, according to Hochul.

Many cities are covered in snow. Over separate 24-hour spans, Baraga, Michigan, received 42.8 inches of snow while Henderson Harbor, New York, got 40.8 inches.

Colorado Springs police reported the deaths of a man near a transformer and another person in an alleyway, both of which were related to the cold.

Buffalo will remain under a winter weather advisory until Tuesday afternoon, with the possibility of 7 more inches of snow. 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.

Hochul stated Monday that the state had ready to eat meals and was ready to give them to food banks, however road conditions are preventing aid efforts.

We have a responsibility to have all these resources on hand. If nature shuts down and creates a wall that cannot be seen, it is not safe, for the emergency vehicles that are in the area, and the trucks that bring groceries to the stores, the stores are being shut down anyways.

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.

Many posts ask for groceries, especially baby formula and diapers. The county says it is giving rides to people who call a hotline for help with their dialysis appointments. A citywide driving ban, which was in place for 6 days, made it illegal for people to try to drive to a grocery store or pharmacy, forcing neighbors to turn to each other to get by in the storm and immediate aftermath. And for as many people who are asking for help, there are those offering assistance.

“Anyone need a driveway cleared still?” One person is working. Someone posted a link to a long list of cars that had been towed. A poster encourages everyone to add to the list of restaurants that are donating meals.

Mark Johnson, the Buffalo resident who has made an offer of supplies and rides to more than 180 other people, explains that this is an important way for people to talk to each other.

A Facebook Message to the Mayor of Buffalo Blizzards 2022 after a Superstorm and a Traffic Contamination Cutoff

Johnson drove around the city without a permit for two days before the driving ban was lifted. He says that he has been stopped by the police three times.

“Unless they’re going to impound my car, I’m just gonna keep racking up these tickets,” Johnson says by phone from the parking lot of Kensington Pizza on Wednesday, where he’s cramming more supplies (and hot pizzas) into an SUV already packed to the ceiling with donations to deliver.

“It’s like tag, you’re it,” explains Johnson, who says he feels a duty to take on this task. “It’s not about, ‘Oh, I hope somebody helps out,’ because you’re the hope that was sent!”

More than 70,0000 people are members of “Buffalo Blizzards 2022.” The page was started by the admin after a nasty storm hit the city with four feet of snow. For this latest snowstorm, she says membership skyrocketed, with at least 46,000 new members joining since Friday.

“While there’s no confirmed number of people that were assisted by this group, it is fair to say that hundreds to thousands of people relied on the information being communicated,” says Aquilina in a Facebook message to NPR.

Aquilina and the group’s four other administrators have been using cell data and phone batteries to approve each and every post in a group of more than 5,000 that has been without power for days.

The timing of the storm means that some people can’t afford to buy supplies and are relying on donations, which is why the pace is not slowing down.

Buffalo is what we are: We are what we’re doing. When we were preparing to play for the Buffalo Bills, we were there to help them

There are many things that describe Buffalonians. We’re described as resilience, tough and strong. And we are. The City of Good Neighbors is also what we’re called.

At the time, I had to tell my wife, who did not grow up with any familiarity with sports or sport culture, “Injuries are part of the game and, when they happen, we players say our prayers, then move on … and play on.”

That is what my wife asked when she saw the tragedy at the game where I was playing for the Buffalo Bills. She saw my teammate Kevin Everett fall limp to the turf after a collision during a kickoff resulting in a severe spinal cord injury. She was one of the 70,000+ fans in the stadium who watched on in silence as Kevin fought for his life. An emergency procedure likely saved his life. He did not play again.

The city is dealing with a grievous neardeath injury to a player on Buffalo Bills football team. It was scary when safety Damar Hamlin had a cardiac arrest at the game last Monday night, but his condition is moving in a positive direction. Many Buffalonians have talked of little else since.

During my playing days at Stanford University, my teammate and fellow running back, Kerry Carter, collided with University of Washington player Curtis Williams, who ran up to make a tackle. At the end of the neck, you could see that he was paralyzed. Players cried, prayed, then played on. After being partially paralyzed the day after his birthday, he died two days later. That collision still haunts my teammate to this day.

Kerry told me it will take some time for everyone involved to come to terms with what they just experienced. It’s crazy to look back now and think that we were able to continue playing.”

We were conditioned in the past to ignore physical and mental pain. We learned not to give priority to the negatives in order to achieve optimal performance. We were trained to fight on with a “next play” mentality anytime something bad happened. So, playing on, despite tragic injuries, was all we knew.

We can’t overstate how impactful it was for the head coaches, Sean McDermott of the Buffalo Bills and Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals, league commissioner Roger Goodell and others to make the decision to end that game. We don’t know what the ripple effect of that decision will be.

Those coaches were cognizant of and concerned about their players’ mental health. After seeing the teary eyes and traumatized looks on their players’ faces, they determined it wasn’t worth trying to continue that game.

Dion Dawkins told CNN that the Bills didn’t have to keep playing. People treat athletes like superstars. They treated us like people when they heard we were celebrities.

Some people still think that the players should have continued playing. You don’t have to search very long on social media to find that some people care more about their fantasy football team’s performance than the health and well-being of their fellow man. I suppose that is how it should be. That’s the way it’s always been.

Jay Withey, Micah Hyde, and the Cheektowaga, Minnesota, hero of the May 14 Tops supermarket shooting

Sharon Bailey is a columnist for the Lockport-Union Sun and Journal. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

In May, a white man murdered 10 people in the African American Masten District of a Tops supermarket.

Buffalo is often elevated to national news due to tragedies. There are a lot of stories of difficulty, but there are also a lot about how we look out for each other.

A case in point: Long before the May 14 Tops supermarket shooting, Bills safety Micah Hyde had scheduled a charity softball game and silent auction to benefit his Imagine for Youth Foundation.

In what seemed an unfortunate coincidence, his event was set for May 15 – one day after the shooting. Hyde held his charity event and donated the proceeds to the families of the shooting victims.

Such good Samaritan stories and tales of heroism are not new to me. I moved to Niagara Falls, NY, 20 miles north of Buffalo, but I grew up in the heart of its Black community two blocks away from the Tops supermarket.

Much of the country has heard about one particular hero of last month’s snowstorm: Jay Withey, a mechanic in the nearby town of Cheektowaga who forged out into December’s storm to help a trapped friend – but got caught in the snow himself.

He was able to get into a school building and find a shelter for himself as well as his friend and others that he had saved from the storm. If not for his quick thinking, many would have perished.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/buffalo-city-of-neighbors-nfl-damar-hamlin-bailey-ctpr/index.html

The Buffalo Bills ‘Wait for it’: How We Were and What Happened to Buffalo During Christmas After the Bears

The Bills played the Bears on Christmas Eve after the storm. The entire city rejoiced when the Bills beat the Bears 35-13. Whether or not you were one of those who didn’t lose power and watched the game, or whether you monitored the action via transistor radio from your attic, it was still true.

The Bills were looking good until a tragedy struck last week. Buoyed by inspiration and affection for their beloved teammate Hamlin, they might make the Super Bowl again. They could win it all the time. They might collapse early in the playoffs.

People across the world are praying for #3, Hamlin’s assigned jersey number, but nowhere are those collective prayers more fervent than among those of us who love and root for the team whose name is emblazoned on the front of his uniform. We will keep following him until he gets better. That is what people in Buffalo do, especially for someone of our own.

If I had to make a slogan for people in this region, it would be, ‘Wait for it’, because it is surely coming. Recovery from whatever blows happens to be a priority.

The storm was a disaster. In some ways, it still is not done with us, as we navigate our collective loss and grief. Even the worst tragedies can be followed by hope and healing.

Most homes had power restored, supermarkets opened and travel restrictions were lifted altogether after a week. The cold temperatures melted the snow.