BUFFALO: After a deadly Christmas blizzard that buried New York’s second-largest city in blinding snow, National Guard troops trudged door to door on Wednesday in search of winter storm victims who may be unaccounted for in parts of Buffalo that were affected by prolonged power outages.
As part of a larger winter storm front and arctic blast that drove freezing temperatures as far south as the Mexican border for days, the strongest blizzard to hit western New York in 45 years killed dozens across the nation, including at least 38 people in the Buffalo area.
According to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, many of the dead in and around Buffalo, which is located on the western shore of Lake Erie near the border with Canada, were found frozen in cars or in snowbanks. Others died of cardiac arrest while shoveling snow.
Anndel Taylor, 22, died in her car after being trapped by Buffalo blizzard while driving home from work. She was found after 18 hours. She sent her family this final video from inside the car. pic.twitter.com/w8GBwR9UOm
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 27, 2022
Poloncarz refreshed the loss of life from the snowstorm on Wednesday, detailing 37 passings in Erie District, with another tempest related casualty in adjoining Niagara Province.
The names of the victims had not yet been determined. 29 of the deceased were accounted for by the city of Buffalo.
According to Poloncarz, the National Guard was checking on people’s health in every Buffalo neighborhood and its suburbs where the electricity was out for a long time. They were looking for people who might have been sick or had hypothermia while they were inside without heat or power.
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He told reporters, “We are afraid there are people who may have died living alone, or two people who are not doing well in an establishment, especially those who still don’t have power.”
He said that paramedic teams would also go to every house where people called the county’s special snowstorm hotline for help but were too far away from emergency workers during the blizzard to get there.
According to Poloncarz, Guard troops had visited 850 homes by late Wednesday night.
He stated that by Wednesday evening, nearly all of Erie County’s electricity had been restored, with only 62 customers that utility workers hoped to restore within hours.
Simultaneously, almost 80 front-end loaders were working nonstop to scoop lots of snow into around 120 dump trucks to be pulled to removal parcels. According to Poloncarz, the objective was to open at least one lane of traffic on each street by Wednesday night.
Thaw and floods next
The National Weather Service reported that Buffalo, ground zero of the storm, had received more than 4-1/2 feet (140 cm) of snow since the end of last week as the remnants of the storm began to fade into flurries early on Wednesday. However, the region was covered in much higher drifts as a result of howling winds, burying hundreds of vehicles, including snow plows, ambulances, and tow trucks.
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On Wednesday, the temperature reached above freezing, and the thaw was expected to continue, with temperatures approaching those of spring and showers likely by the end of the week. The sudden shift was likely to rapidly transform the region’s frozen landscape into slush while also causing flooding and ice jams in nearby creeks.
Poloncarz stated, “We’re actually expecting a rapid melt over the next two days, because we’ll reach 50 degrees (Fahrenheit).” Together with the state, we are preparing for the possibility of flooding.”
The military and New York City police were called in to wave cars off the road and stop traffic trying to enter Buffalo, which remained under a driving ban. However, Poloncarz stated that on Thursday at 12:01 a.m. EST, the ban would be lifted and replaced by a “travel advisory.”
The most paralyzing blizzard in Western New York’s history occurred during the most recent blizzard, even for a region that is accustomed to frequent bouts of “lake-effect” snow, which is caused by moisture being picked up by cold air moving over warmer lake waters.
The Christmas storm was more severe, lasted longer, and killed more people than the blizzard of 1977, which killed nearly 30 people. It became the local standard against which all other such weather events were measured in the years since.
According to Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at the NWS Weather Prediction Center in Maryland, the thaw this week was part of a larger warming trend that was taking place across the eastern third of the United States. This trend will continue past New Year’s Day, with temperatures remaining largely above freezing.
A “potent atmospheric river” was predicted to hit central and northern California and southwestern Oregon hardest, bringing heavy mountain snow and potentially excessive rainfall to much of the West Coast beginning on Thursday.
According to the weather service, showers and thunderstorms are anticipated along the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley.
