Quote:
Originally Posted by NYPorsche
A combination of those who went out and the inability of fire/EMS to respond. They didn't institute a driving ban until about 30 minutes before it got bad on Friday morning, and without the driving ban many empoyers still required their employees to come in, so a lot of people got stuck when they instituted the ban and tried to get home. I'm in Buffalo and we were warned starting Friday night that effectively there were no emergency services available due to the roads being impassible. There were a few deaths from cardiac arrest or other medical emergencies where the first responders just couldn't get there. At the height of the storm, there were about 20k residences without power. Most of those are back on, but unfortunately the death toll is expected to rise as searching continues.
We got about 36" at my house and we had the first plow come through around 11 pm last night. Like Ramones' brother - my driveway and sidewalks have been clear for a few days, but there's been no way to get in or out of the neighborhood. and no way an ambulance or police car was getting down my street. That also delayed the power crews from getting out to quickly get power restored.
This was the biggest storm I've seen in the 20 years I've lived here, but as a city that sees snow regularly our street clearing is a joke. We've had the same do-nothing Mayor for 17 years now, and his handling of the municipal departments is a case study in mismanagement. We're still under a driving ban and supposedly the NYS Troopers are stationed around the city and ticketing.
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This is the fact ! Local and State travel bans came way too late. It was a huge storm and it was going to hit the area in a bad way. Everybody knew it. The local and state officials let their constituents down by not affecting a ban the prior day.