28 dead in ‘once in a generation’ blizzard in western New York

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Four days after snow started falling, the Buffalo area remained crippled on Monday by a devastating blizzard that left at least 28 dead and that officials said was the worst winter storm in more than 50 years.

With the storm nearing its end, Buffalo residents started to venture out, particularly as their supplies of food ran low. But with many roads in western New York impassable, thousands still without power and more snow expected to continue falling through the end of the night on Monday, officials said that conditions remained dangerous and that they expected the death toll could rise.

“This has been a very difficult and dangerous storm,” Buffalo’s mayor, Byron Brown, said at a news conference on Monday. “It’s been described as a once-in-a-generation storm. And everything that has been forecast, we have gotten in the city of Buffalo, and then some.”

A driving ban remained in place in Buffalo, a city of around 270,000 people, and in some of its immediate suburbs as authorities pleaded with residents to remain home. Brown said many of the city’s streets had yet to be plowed, with the early focus on clearing paths for ambulances, police officers, rescue vehicles and medical workers.

Complicating efforts, Gov. Kathy Hochul said, were “scores and scores of vehicles” that had been abandoned in ditches and snowbanks during the storm and had yet to be removed. In some cases, she said, snowplows and rescue vehicles had been trapped.

Hochul, a Democrat, said she had asked the White House for a federal disaster declaration. President Joe Biden told Hochul on the phone on Monday that he would make sure the state had the resources it needed, according to the White House.

Mark C. Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, said 27 deaths were linked to the storm in his county. Fourteen of those dead were found outside, and three were in a vehicle, he said. Four others died because they did not have heat, and three died in “cardiac-related events” while removing snow from outside homes and businesses.

In Niagara County, the sheriff’s office said a 27-year-old man in Lockport died of carbon monoxide poisoning after heavy snow blocked an external furnace, causing carbon monoxide to enter the house.

Western New York, where residents take pride in their resilience in the face of brutal winter weather, appeared to have suffered the worst of a fierce storm that brought bitter cold to much of the United States. At one point on Friday, roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population was under winter warnings or advisories.

Other regions appeared to be recovering after strong winds took down power lines in the central, eastern and northern United States. In Maine, one of the states hit hardest by power outages, more than 17,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Monday afternoon, according to state utility companies’ maps.

But the storm has lingered in the Buffalo area. “We can see, sort of, the light at the end of the tunnel,” Poloncarz said. “But this is not the end yet. We are not there.”

Police officers and rescue workers roamed the streets of Buffalo on snowmobiles and trucks, while members of the National Guard, wearing military gear, patrolled in jeeps. Even as residents took steps to dig themselves out, many restaurants and supermarkets remained closed, sending people to social media to try and find needed supplies.

Dave Lewis, 52, of Buffalo, walked for 45 minutes while navigating snow drifts before he found an open corner store, Buff City Market. Lewis said he purchased “tuna fish, jerky and pop.”

“I had to get food,” Lewis said. “I’ll take what I can get.”

The shop’s owner, Ali Omer, said a metal barrier he had placed over the window of the store froze shut on Friday. He managed to pry it open on Sunday, and residents had been pouring in ever since to buy whatever supplies they could.

Latasha Leeper, 38, paid a man $100 to remove a 4-foot snow drift behind her car that had forced her to miss her Sunday shift at a nearby group home.

Leeper, who cares for teenagers with autism, said three of her colleagues who were scheduled to work only on Friday ended up working through the weekend because others like her remained unable to drive.

“Our staff is struggling,” she said.

Brandon Andrews, 23, said his 80-year-old step-grandmother was trapped without power for several days until neighbors helped clear a pathway through the snow to her apartment building. Andrews, a student at the University at Buffalo, said she kept warm with a blanket and space heater powered by a battery or generator.

“She couldn’t feel her feet,” he said Monday, as he helped her navigate through the snow and ice to a relative’s house down the street.

The snow is expected to end by Tuesday morning and to be mostly concentrated north of the city, before moving south overnight, said Jon Hitchcock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

With very little wind in the forecast, he added, the Buffalo region should not expect the same level of blizzard-like conditions it experienced over the weekend.

The weather service said Monday that more than 49 inches of snow was recorded over three days at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the highest total in Erie County. Jefferson County received between 22 and 41 inches of snow, Niagara County recorded up to 24 inches of snow and Lewis County saw up to 30 inches of snow over the same time period, according to the weather service.

More than 11,000 customers remained without power in Erie County as of Monday evening. Poloncarz said electricity “might not get restored until Tuesday.” Officials said the airfield at the Buffalo airport would remain closed until Wednesday morning.

State officials said four electric substations had been knocked offline, but two had been fully repaired, and Brown said Buffalo was working with National Grid, the utility that serves the region, to bring the other two back to full operation.

Dave Bertola, a spokesperson for National Grid, said efforts to restore power had been slowed by unplowed roads and difficulties reaching downed and damaged power lines. “The biggest challenge we’ve had is that with so much drifting snow, the visibility has been poor and streets were not plowed,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can to get out there.”

Beau Duffy, a spokesperson for the New York State Police, said more than 100 members of the state police were using snowmobiles and other special vehicles to help clear roads, reach stranded cars and move vehicles from roadways to make room for snowplows.

Poloncarz and Hochul, who grew up in the Buffalo suburbs, said this week’s storm was the worst in their memory. Both, at times, evoked comparisons to the city’s blizzard of 1977, which left 28 people in the state dead.

“No one thought we’d see a blizzard worse than the one in ’77 here,” said Hochul, who was 18 at the time of that monumental storm. “And we did this week.”