Buffalo area braces for more snow

CNN) -- There are 5 1/2 feet of snow outside and on top of Chrissy Hazard's home in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, New York. A treadmill and table prop up a door felled by the snow's attempted push into the home.

But everything's all right for now, she told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."

"We're good. We're buried in the house but we're doing OK," she said.

Hazard is stuck inside the home with her husband, a friend, seven children and some dogs. It may be three or four days before they can get out, she said. There is a small patch of yard that offers the pups a chance to go outside.

And there's more wintery precipitation on the way after a respite Wednesday.

CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers said that 20 to 30 more inches of snow will fall Thursday during a 10-hour window.

There is so much snow, Buffalo officials aren't even plowing. Instead hundreds of dump trucks venture out to haul snow away from the 10 square miles that have been pummeled by the lake-effect snow. Other areas of New York's second-most populous city only received 1 to 6 inches, officials said.

Seven deaths in the region -- including one man whose car was buried under more than a foot of snow -- are blamed on the extreme storm, authorities said.

Firefighters came to check on the Hazard family on Tuesday as many emergency workers put in double shifts and got little sleep.

Stories about acts of bravery and kindness were emerging even as the snow was piling up and up in the city on Lake Erie.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and city officials Wednesday recounted stories of rescuers trudging around snow drifts as high as houses to get people to hospitals, of fire stations turned into temporary shelters and police officers delivering special baby formula to a pair of infants.

"It is clear that we are one Buffalo," Brown said.

Buffalo prides itself as "The City of Good Neighbors."

"Buffalo itself, known as a city of neighbors, has come together and shown a real sense of community and neighbor helping neighbor, which is always good to see," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters.