Snow covered a street in south Buffalo on Wednesday. Credit Carolyn Thompson/Associated Press
BUFFALO — Liza Smith knows snow. But she had never seen anything like what she encountered on Tuesday morning on the New York State Thruway.
Just outside of Buffalo, she ran smack into a towering wall of white, the edge of one of the most powerful winter storms ever to descend on the region.
Within hours, several people were dead. As five feet of snow blanketed the region, schools and government offices were closed, sporting events were postponed, and hundreds of people, including Ms. Smith, were stranded across a stretch of western New York just south of Buffalo.
Ms. Smith and her daughter, Chloé, stopped in the Thruway’s fast lane and were trapped in the car for more than a day. With spectacularly large flakes continuing to fall furiously outside, burying the car ever deeper, she called 911 and the Thruway Authority.
“We’d been stranded for hours, and this one woman at the Thruway Authority knew me by now,†she said. “I told her we couldn’t take another night in the car, we might die.†But as night turned to day and back to night again, no one came.
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Time-Lapse of Lake-Effect Snowstorm
Time-Lapse of Lake-Effect Snowstorm
A rush of cold air from the north set the perfect conditions for the moisture coming off the Great Lakes to create sprawling snow bands across Buffalo.
Video by YouTube/Joseph DeBenedicti and Jason Holler on Publish Date November 19, 2014. Photo by YouTube/Joseph DeBenedicti.
“I saw a couple of snowmobiles and a plow truck go by, but no one else over those 25 hours,†Ms. Smith said.
She was eventually rescued, but it was, she said, the scare of her life, in a storm that left snowdrifts as high as houses and transformed whole towns into indistinguishable mounds of white.
At least seven people died as a result of the weather, according to local authorities. Four of the victims had cardiac problems, including an elderly man who needed treatment but could not be taken to a hospital in time. In Erie County, which includes Buffalo, a 46-year-old man was found dead inside his car buried under 15 feet of snow in Alden, according to county officials.
With another blast of snow expected overnight, dumping as much as three more feet of snow in some places, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo warned that people could be trapped inside for days.
“It will get worse before it gets better,†Mr. Cuomo said.
In the modern-day version of a sending an S.O.S., scores of people posted pictures on Twitter showing the wall of white that greeted them when they opened their front doors. Some took a playful attitude, carving out shelves in the snow to create natural refrigerators.
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As of midday Wednesday.
Buffalo Niagara
International
Airport (6.2)
Snowfall observation figures
in inches are in parentheses.
Source: National Weather Service
As much of the nation was plunged into a deep freeze, the sudden rush of cold air from the north set the perfect conditions for the moisture off the Great Lakes to create sprawling snow bands, the most ferocious of which settled over the communities just south of Buffalo on Tuesday.
Mr. Cuomo declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard to help rescue people stranded in the storm.
“Mother Nature is showing us who is boss once again,†he said at a news conference in Erie County on Wednesday. “I believe when all is said and done, this snowfall may break all sorts of records.â€
The snow fell so fast that it quickly packed into a solid mass, making plowing impossible. The only option is to use heavy machinery to pick up snow and haul it away, a slow, grinding effort.
“This is a very extreme event,†said Shawn Smith, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Buffalo. “It basically crippled all the towns south of Buffalo.â€
But unlike a typical winter storm, the snow caused by the “lake effect†was not felt equally across the region. The divide was so stark that someone on a tall building in downtown Buffalo had clear skies overheard but could see a menacing gray wall of moisture and snow being swept up off the lake and driven south.
Photo
Tractors cleared a path through the snow in Orchard Park, N.Y., on Wednesday. Credit Harry Scull Jr./The Buffalo News, via Associated Press
Mr. Cuomo came under withering criticism in 2013 when hundreds of people were stranded in their vehicles for hours on the Long Island Expressway during a winter storm.
He defended the state’s response to this storm, saying that there was no perfect time to call for roads to be closed and that every effort was made to reach those who were stranded.
But he said drivers needed to take responsibility.
Some people though the authorities could have done more for the people who were stranded, and their anger was not limited to public officials. When the Buffalo Bills announced that they would pay people $10 an hour to clear an estimated 220,000 tons of snow from around the stadium so they would be ready to play their game on Sunday, some residents thought a better use of such labor would be digging out people still stuck in their homes.
In Lancaster, N.Y., where more than 60 inches of snow fell in less than 24 hours, the streets looked like a stage set for a dystopian movie, where snow has claimed dominion over mankind.
Paige Marki, 18, who works at a gas station, struggled on Wednesday morning to clear more than four feet of snow piled on her car. She recalled the scene around town at the height of the storm.
“There were semis everywhere, at least six, parked sideways, parked on the side of the road, blocking the road, cars blocking the road, people coming out of their cars, people were trapped in their cars,†Ms. Marki said. “This one guy told me he called the police. But they were so backed up he had no idea when they were coming.â€
Ms. Marki said at least 20 people were stranded at the gas station.
“When we were walking back it was like hell,†she said. “It was terrible. You couldn’t see a thing in front of you. We just walked with our heads down the whole time.â€
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