>“It’s a grueling, gruesome task that they had to do,” Gramaglia said, noting his force has finished following up on some 1,100 backlogged welfare check and 911 calls. “They recovered a substantial amount of bodies, and it’s terrible.”

>A Buffalo mom went out on Christmas Eve, telling her daughter she'd be right back. They found her body a few hundred feet from home “The stories are heartbreaking, just heartbreaking,” Poloncarz said. Among the dead are a senior home worker, a soon-to-be new dad and a grandmother whose body a stranger moved “so that she wouldn’t get snowed on anymore.”

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Why would you go out in a blizzard ? It's basically a cold hurricane. They had plenty of warnings. Be prepared and stay home.

Horrible situation all around. But ... the storm was predicted, so why is/was it so hard for people to just remain where they were? Why go out in a feckin’ blizzard at all? Yes, it sucks being stuck at work or whatever, but it beats dying in your car when the roads are blocked and you can’t see.

The state, city, and county’s preparedness is a different story. It was announced on the first day of the blizzard that no emergency services were available and they weren’t restored for days, even after the blizzard had already ended. The city wasn’t dug out for a week, while surrounding suburbs that experienced the same weather and similar obstacles were cleaned up in a matter of days. During this time people were still stuck in their homes with no heat and power. Buffalo has a failing infrastructure and unfortunately it led to mass loss of life. The vast majority is the blizzard’s deaths occurred within the city.

But none of those reasons point fingers back to the preparedness scenario now being investigated.

Like mask fatigue with COVID, how do you get those in Buffalo to take blizzards seriously? How do you get Floridians to take hurricanes seriously?

Root cause analysis suggests something far more difficult to address: pervasive erosion in confidence and trust in government and science.

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The officials warned people. It was national news for a week before. "This shit is coming, and coming hard." People had time to prepare, evacuate, stock up. It sucks, it's a tragedy, but you can't slap an "I did that!" sticker on the blizzard.

This. People just couldn’t stay off the roads and abandoned their cars, which left the roads blocked so they couldn’t plow the streets and emergency vehicles couldn’t get through.

It’s a lot like people that live in a flood plain. When it floods you get the people that are like, “Why would this happen here!?!?”. But…people still choose to live there.

Buffalo is no different. It’s a perfect recipe for lake effect snow bomb disasters every. Winter. - but, they’ve made it long…why change what’s not broken, I guess?

It’s terrible what has happened. This isn’t the first time, or the last time - but all the same: know your neighbors, know your weather, and do the right thing.

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Because a lot of businesses order their employees to show up at work regardless of weather it's safe to drive. They will even tell the people that work for them to break rules against driving bans and show up at work or get fired. After a while, they don't need to make the threat, as everyone just assumes the threat will be made again if they ask.

We call this economic system Freedom somehow. Free Market Race to the bottom basically.

As a native Louisianian who moved to Minnesota, no, a blizzard is not at all like a cold hurricane. Not to downplay the severity of a blizzard, but it's basically just a lot of snow over an extended period. Hurricanes can have multiple tornadoes, destroy entire towns, and move roads. Not even close.

This blizzard was literally just "stay home, shovel once it's done". I didn't have to worry about my house flooding or having an oak tree dropped on it. I'm very, very glad I moved, and now have to deal with winter blizzards and summer thunderstorms instead of the loci of pure destruction that are hurricanes.

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The president warned everyone. When I saw that I knew then it was gonna be bad. Once I refused to evacuate from a hurricane. I would never ever do that again . Lucky to have survived. Any kind of warning throws me into action now.

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The first step is to not make excuses or fault someone else. The truth is people made bad choices that cost them thier lives.

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"DON'T YOU KNOW HOW IMPORTANT MY PLANS ARE"

or sometimes it's shit companies forcing people to come in no matter what.

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You act like people don’t live paycheck to paycheck and arent forced to work. These people don’t have enough money to stock up for food.

I will concur with you here, except I want to know why the dead/injured were on the road in the first place.

How many of them were coming and going from work, having to deal with unreasonable bosses?

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Hi. Many, many employers were open Friday morning. That would account for a lot. Also my parents lost power with the first gust and i almost drove to them several times. Their house was down to 36 degrees before the power came on. People were faced with desperate decisions and it came on FAST.

I hope that helps your understanding.

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How did it go?

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It’s not fair to say people should not have been out and here’s why:

1. People were not sufficiently warned. There’s warnings about severe snow storms a couple times a year in Buffalo. The messaging for this wasn’t drastically different. I’m a relatively informed person and from what I understood there was going to be an ice storm. I texted my manager the night before to ask him if we’d have to come in with a state of emergency declared. He didn’t know it had been declared. I’m signed up for the city wide alert system, which is used all the time for messaging about stuff like driving bans, trash pickup, parking, etc. No alert was sent out about this storm until after the blizzard had already started.

2. Driving bans are common place in Buffalo. Employers generally do not see an upcoming snow storm as a valid reason for employees to miss a day of work. A driving ban makes it illegal to require employees to come in. This also keeps people off the roads because, without employees, businesses close. Officials say the driving ban awas enacted around 9:30 but I didn’t receive the alert on my phone until after 10. The city, state, and county keep saying people knew how bad this storm would be and blaming them for not being prepared. If this is true, why didn’t they enact the driving ban the night before rather than when people were already at work and on the roads? The blizzard hit very fast and people were stranded trying to get home.

3. People were without heat or power in subzero temps. They left their homes to seek safety. The second leading cause of death for this was people who died in their homes.

Just a life FYI For your relative story….you don’t get to ‘told ya so’ if the bad thing you thought would happen didn’t occur. I mean you can but it just makes you an asshole.

It’s true a blizzard and a hurricane are very different things. But actually many people’s pipes burst due to cold, leaving houses flooded and declared total losses. There were also trees down all over, some on cars and houses.

Would be great if businesses cared and actually closed too

Did they not? I'm sure a few "essential" places tried to stay open but I have to imagine that the vast majority of places closed before it hit.

People In Buffalo are pretty arrogant when it comes to this sort of thing. We pride ourselves in our ability to handle snow.

Many stores don’t even shut down during storms (for better or for worse).

A lot of people simply completely underestimated this storm and the type of storm it was. Buffalo normally doesn’t get Blizzards with hurricane force winds.

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Except this is a once in a lifetime storm. You have to look back 50 years for anything even remotely similar.

In most storms if you get stuck you can either dig yourself out or wait for a tow.

The hurricane force winds and frostbite laden temperatures meant people couldn’t dig out and it was too dangerous for rescue teams.

Once you get a car stuck, that road becomes impassable including for plows which are 90% of the tools used to keep roads clear. The city wasn’t prepared for the amount of stuck vehicles that had to be dug out and towed before plows could get down streets.

If you live somewhere warm, maybe all snow storms seem like they’re the same, but that’s not the case.

This was the difference between a bad tropical storm and a category 3 hurricane.

I have no idea why this isn’t being mentioned, but once the power goes out in freezing weather, staying where you are can be a death sentence. If you don’t have a generator or wood stove, staying where you are for several days is not an option.

Also, I’m sure that some were underprepared and others made dumb decisions like not closing offices. But the lack of sympathy and “told ya so” comments in this thread is disturbing. Some people went out looking for medicine and necessary medical treatment. Others went out to try to help elderly or physically handicapped people. This whole “why didn’t everyone just stay home” logic is very short sighted

Apologies if my post seems like an “I told you so” because that is not what I’m saying. And I agree with and know that most people are living paycheck to paycheck and have shitty bosses, etc. There is a lot to learn from this experience. Be prepared. Help others if you can. Let’s make 2023 a better year for all.

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I've lived in Buffalo for decades. We do expect snow storms. But this was like a category 1 hurricane, and hurricanes are not usually a part of living in Western NY.

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Sometimes it's just reality. I live in hurricane territory and people are warned to evacuate every time, and every time people don't. And we help them pick up the pieces and clean up in the aftermath, every time. I'm not victim blaming, but I don't support blaming big brother for not saving people from themselves either.

I am sure there are some fucked up individual situations here, but wholesale "It's all Buffalo's fault" is nonsense.

Why don't they simply have the Uber eats peons deliver them food during the storm? Surely an extra few dollars for the tip is worth it in times.like these!!?

^/s

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I checked my text messages from last week after reading your second point. These were the warnings I received about the storm (summarized):
Thurs 12/22 9:38am - Garbage pickup canceled on Fri 12/26
Fri 12/23 8:42am - Garbage pickup canceled on Fri 12/26
8:52am - Blizzard warning now in effect, no garbage/recycling pickup today
9:40am - [text clarifying date is actually Fri 12/23]
10:03am - first travel ban

Then there’s one or two messages every day after that for the driving ban until it was lifted. A front loader made one pass down our street before dawn on Monday. Then nothing until yesterday. This is on the east side of buffalo.

> I'm sure a few "essential" places tried to stay open

So you're saying that some people had no choice but to go to work? Yea...that's the point being made

Those businesses that stayed open should face fines. Maybe even criminal prosecution if an employee died as a result of their greediness.

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Exactly. It’s worth noting garbage pickup is delayed all of the time so this isn’t exactly a dire warning.

If there was no order to close from the city or state then they had no duty to close. This fault lies with the city for not issuing such orders.

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https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/buffalo-womans-body-found-few-hundred-feet-from-home/1431608

>Maccarone was feeling anxious already, watching the notifications about closures of stores on Facebook, she told CNN.

But her mother wanted to go out and Alexander, 52, said she'd be right back and left without mentioning where she was headed. Maccarone, who had lived with Alexander since August, said she just assumed her mom was trying to get to the stores before they closed.

>"She's always felt like superwoman and invincible, so I'm assuming that she just thought she could handle the conditions," Maccarone said. "Can't really tell my mom anything, she's going to do what she wants to do. I'm assuming she just thought she was strong enough for it."

Some people though are 100% to blame for ignoring common sense

When it calls for it, yes, sometimes victims bring it onto themselves.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/buffalo-womans-body-found-few-hundred-feet-from-home/1431608

> Maccarone was feeling anxious already, watching the notifications about closures of stores on Facebook, she told CNN. > > But her mother wanted to go out and Alexander, 52, said she'd be right back and left without mentioning where she was headed. Maccarone, who had lived with Alexander since August, said she just assumed her mom was trying to get to the stores before they closed. > > "She's always felt like superwoman and invincible, so I'm assuming that she just thought she could handle the conditions," Maccarone said. "Can't really tell my mom anything, she's going to do what she wants to do. I'm assuming she just thought she was strong enough for it." >

Some people are 100% to blame for ignoring common sense.

How can the government do anything to prevent people like this woman?

We keep hearing "once in a lifetime storm" after every major weather event in the past decade. At some point people need to pay attention.

Wage slavery is still slavery and its sad many people don't see that. There is very little to zero voluntary consent when the choice is work or starve to death under a bridge.

I agree with it falls on the city not to give the order, but some of this also comes to simple humanity, if things are going to be so bad businesses should have taken their employees well being into consideration. Maybe they didnt think it would happen so fast but at the same time they should have to consider life over profits.

Setting up a living room blanket tent and filling large bottles with hot boiled water to send up heat can really help in such situations. Or going into a bathroom and turning on the hot water to max to generate steam. I know someone who made a blanket tent with hot boiled water and spent a couple days in there in a sleeping bag

It's a fucked up world where momentary profits outweigh human life.

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"wage slavery" is not slavery and should not be compared to slavery

A lot of store/shift managers that make a dollar or two over the employees they supervise are still living paycheck to paycheck. They don't want to be at the store anymore than their employees do but if they had decided to close the store and cancel shifts they would've gotten their asses handed to them if the storm turned out not to be as terrible as it was. That's really what it comes down to, out of touch higher-ups that don't live in the area, or that don't have to leave their houses, thinking that it'll blow over like all the other storms that are forecasted to be catastrophic. You see it with hurricanes all the time which is part of why people don't evacuate.

Assuming they had gas stoves and water heaters that weren't affected by the storm. RIP to anyone who only have electric appliances.

There are a lot of plans that are great if you have the ability, but even those require the weather to work with you to some degree.

Thank you. This is something that we see in the south during hurricane season, and yet there's still a question of why someone living hand-to-mouth would ignore an evacuation when a storm is coming. Not that difficult to understand - if they still have a home after the storm passes, they're going to be expected to pay to live there.

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If a business is open there will likely be someone going there for stupid shit. I've worked at gas stations during winter storms and blizzards and while gas stations can be considered essential, people came in just to buy lottery tickets. No gas, no snacks, no tools. Just lottery tickets.

Not to mention the fact that anyone that closes a business or decides not to go into work because of a storm will be labeled as overdramatic if the storm ends up shifting or not being as extreme as forecasted. Which is another issue - while actual meteorologists might care about the forecast being accurate, news stations want something to sound apocalyptic. It leads to a "boy who cried wolf" situation where everyone in the area knows there's a 90% chance it won't be that bad, and everyone outside the area calls them idiots for not taking it seriously. Of course, if it turns out not to be that serious everyone forgets about it, so it doesn't occur to them that we get warnings like that every time something shows up on the radar.

And then there's the slight chance that something gets worse than originally forecasted. Happens with hurricanes sometimes and the concept of "too late to evacuate" doesn't make sense to someone who hasn't been in that situation before.

Oh, and while I totally agree that the city should've done more about this, keep in mind that once they say that everything needs to shut down the city turns into an absolute shitshow with people realizing that they're not prepared, leading to more clogged streets/stores/what have you. It'd be nice if people could have that all ready at the beginning of the season, but again, preparation is a luxury for people living hand-to-mouth.

Shit, and I damn near forgot to mention that while it is nice for a business to close when a storm like this rolls through, the employees whose shifts were cancelled don't get storm pay. They just don't get paid. Their landlords and utility companies don't care that their shifts got cancelled. Neither do grocery stores.

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I've been through blizzards and hurricanes. Born in the buffalo area, moved to Orlando, moved back to Buffalo. Hurricanes are far worse in my opinion, way scarier, but this blizzard came with 70mph winds. This one was .. something else. It was crazy. Visibility was literally 4 ft and it was bitter, bitter cold. My house was swaying and my back door screen ripped off and the door froze shut. -and we were lucky.

Not to mention that even if a business closed or gave employees the choice not to come in without repercussions, those employees lose money either way. That's a missed shift (or multiple) and they're most likely not going to catch a break on their rent, utilities, or other payments because of it.

Right? How the fuck is the guy above you up voted? It's a disgusting downplaying of how horrific slavery was throughout the world, and in the us and Caribbean in particular.

Shitty jobs suck, and so horrible bosses. However, your manager cannot legally torture, rape, and murder you, they can't prevent you from living with your family, and you're free to seek other employment. Literally nothing in common with slavery whatsoever.

Right before the holiday. In one of the poorest cities in the country.

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Why is it called "wage slavery"?

What aspect of the employer/employee relationship is being compared to slavery?

Please show your work (this is vital for understanding)

Yeah this was the first blizzard I've been through so I have no others to really compare to. But this was like...windy? Snowy? Shit was downright pleasant next to Katrina and Rita. Granted I'm in Minnesota, Upstate NY got it worse.

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Quite a few went out responding to pleas for help too. It’s not easy telling your family and friends you’re not helping them to safety.

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As someone who has lived in CNY my whole life, we don't get storms like this. -20° is not common, nor is 51" of snow over one weekend.

I can't speak for the residents of buffalo, but it's not uncommon for people around here to be on the poverty line, they can't afford to miss work.

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Grew up in WNY we have a bad habit of playing chicken with shitty winter weather in that part of the country, and as it happens we tend to get some of the worst snowfall in the entire country as well. So it’s no big secret that catastrophic snowfall happens, we just tend to shrug it off until the very last minute even if it means costing people’s lives.