Deadly Snowstorm Clobbers Western N.Y.
Pastor Dale Morgan
Deadly Snowstorm Clobbers Western N.Y.*
Friday October 13, 2006 9:31 PM
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Buffalo lay all but paralyzed Friday after a
record-breaking early snowstorm whited out the brilliant colors of fall,
buried pumpkins and apples and caught this city famous for its wintry
weather flat-flooted. At least three deaths were blamed on the storm.
The heavy, wet snow snapped tree limbs all over western New York,
leaving some 380,000 homes and businesses without power.
A state of emergency was in effect across the region, banning all
nonessential travel. Branches and power lines lay draped across cars and
houses, and normally busy downtown streets were still, blanketed by up
to 2 feet of snow.
``I thought it was kind of pretty but eerie,'' said Ann Goff, who walked
to her job at a Buffalo supermarket in the middle of the night. ``It was
scary listening to the cracking of the branches.''
The snow, delivered in a fury of thunder and lightning, blanketed
Buffalo and surrounding areas Thursday night and early Friday. A
105-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway was closed for hours, and
food and water had to be delivered by snowmobile to stranded motorists.
Many municipal trucks were still working to remove leaves on Thursday
and did not have plows attached when the surprise storm hit.
As workers sawed and hoisted fallen tree limbs full of autumn color,
Bitsy Kosovac, 68, of Point Richmond, Calif., tried to trudge out from
her Buffalo hotel for a morning walk in ankle-length boots and a light
jacket. A foot of slushy snow and the howling wind stopped her before
she could get out of the parking lot.
``If I had better shoes, I would,'' the Texas native said, trying to
turn the storm into an another adventure in her group's fall foliage
tour of Mark Twain historic sites.
One of the deaths was a teenager struck by a car while walking in
Niagara County. Another person was killed in a two-car accident in
Lancaster, and a third person died after being hit by a falling tree
limb while shoveling snow in Amherst, officials said.
Ambulance crews brought oxygen to the elderly and drove patients to
dialysis treatments.
On Thursday, 8.6 inches of snow fell - the snowiest October day in
Buffalo in the weather service's 137-year history. The record lasted for
all of one day, as a foot of snow fell early Friday. The old record was
6 inches, set on Oct. 31, 1917.
The snow began melting as bright sunshine emerged and temperatures
warmed into the 40s. But the wind continued to howl, raising fears more
trees would topple.
``My yard looks like pick-up sticks with the trees,'' said Rep. Thomas
Reynolds, a Republican from suburban Clarence.
Schoolchildren who began the week with a summerlike Columbus Day holiday
ended it with a snow day.
``It's pretty cool because we get to build snow forts,'' said
10-year-old Christopher Platek. ``We get to bury ourselves in the snow!''
The storm buried pumpkins and apples just before a busy picking weekend,
but the quickly melting snow was not expected to cause damage, New York
Farm Bureau spokesman Peter Gregg said.
At the Seven Seas Sailing School on Lake Erie, boats were encrusted in ice.
In some of the city's Victorian-era neighborhoods, oaks, maples,
magnolias - some of which have withstood a century of the harshest
elements - were bowed or broken.
``Our street looked like it was hit by a hurricane. It looks like the
apocalypse. It's unreal,'' said Matthew Colken. ``One-hundred-year-old
trees are down.''
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Associated Press Writers Michael Gormley and John Wawrow in Buffalo and
Jessica Pasko and Valerie Bauman in Albany contributed to this report.