Western New York reels as blizzard deaths rise


The tragic death toll from a brutal blizzard in western New York state continued to rise on Monday, with many of the more than two dozen victims found on snowbanks or trapped in their vehicles.
Others among the 28 who died were shoveling snow or perished before emergency crews could respond to medical crises. Twenty of the fatalities were in Buffalo, the second-largest city in New York state.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called the blizzard "the worst storm probably in our lifetime" and warned there might be more dead. Some people were stranded in their cars for more than two days, he said.
"I just have to offer my deepest condolences to those who lost a loved one as a result of this horrible situation," Poloncarz said. "I never thought I'd face this. I thought the storm that we faced in 2014 would have been the worst in which we had 14 deaths, but this has far surpassed it."
"We have many more 911 calls regarding dead bodies that we are also working diligently to get to, to confirm and recover," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday evening, the Buffalo News reported.
The National Weather Service said Monday that up to 9 more inches of snow (23 centimeters) could fall in some areas through Tuesday.
The blizzard roared across western New York on Friday and Saturday — stranding motorists, knocking out power and preventing emergency crews from reaching residents in frigid homes and stuck automobiles.
"It doesn't matter if you had 1,000 more pieces of equipment and 10,000 personnel, there's still nothing you could have done in that period. It was that bad," said Poloncarz. "I know it's hard for people to believe, but it was like looking at a white wall for 14 to 18 hours straight.
"This was not a lack of apparatus. This was not a lack of personnel," he said. "We were at the mercy of Mother Nature. It's as simple as that."
New York Governor Kathy Hochul toured the aftermath in Buffalo, her hometown, on Monday, calling the blizzard "one for the ages". Almost every firetruck in the city became stranded Saturday, she said.
"No one thought we'd see a blizzard worse than the one in '77 here," said Hochul, who was 18 at the time of a massive 1977 storm.
US President Joe Biden wrote on Twitter on Monday that he had spoken to the governor and that his administration would provide resources for rescue and recovery.
The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 49.2 inches (1.25 meters) at 10 am Monday. Buffalo is situated on the eastern end of Lake Erie and is about a six-hour drive northwest from New York City and across the border with Ontario, Canada.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown described the heartbreaking task of retrieving storm victims from cars, homes and streets.
"Our police officers are human. It is painful to find members of your community that are deceased," the mayor said, adding that the blizzard's victims "were trying to walk out during storm conditions, got disoriented and passed away out in the street".
The mayor also pleaded for residents to stay off the streets.
"You will still get stuck out there," he said. "Many streets in the city of Buffalo are still impassable. We have plows on mains and secondaries. We're into residential streets now, but the driving conditions are still very difficult. The driving ban is still in place. Please do not drive in the city of Buffalo."
Beau Duffy, a spokesman for the New York State Police, said that more than 100 officers were using snowmobiles and other vehicles to clear roads, reach stranded cars and move vehicles off roadways to make room for snowplows, The New York Times reported.
Daniel Neaverth Jr, the Erie County commissioner of Emergency Services, said that more than a dozen gas stations in the county were inoperable "because the convenience side of them has been looted and the equipment inside has been rendered ineffective and thus the pumps for the fueling are ineffective", ABC News reported.
"So if you don't think there's a trickle-down from going looting and grabbing individual little things, this is a drastic implication for us that we now have to deal with to find alternate fuel sources," he said.
A post on Twitter showed a Walmart store in Buffalo "completely ransacked".
"People who are out looting when people are losing their lives in this harsh winter storm is absolutely reprehensible," the mayor said.
With many grocery stores in the Buffalo area closed and driving bans in place, some people pleaded on social media for donations of food and diapers.
Jackie Bray, commissioner of the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said as of Monday afternoon there were about 12,500 households in Erie County without power, which was down from about 23,000 the night before, the Buffalo News reported.
Relief is coming this week, though, as forecasts call for temperatures to slowly rise, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"Nothing like what we had last week," Cook said, adding that the bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure plummets in a strong storm — has weakened. It developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, heavy winds and snow.
About 60 percent of the US 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. NBC reported 57 storm deaths nationwide.
There were 3,813 domestic airline flights canceled on Monday as of 7:10 pm EDT, according to tracking site FlightAware. The site said Southwest Airlines had 2,811 cancellations — about 69 percent of its scheduled flights and about 10 times as many as any other major US carrier.
Agencies contributed to this story.
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