Heavy Snow Keeps Falling in Buffalo Area, Straining Nerves and Roofs

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/nyregion/snowstorm-western-new-york.html

LANCASTER, N.Y. — Jack Fasanella and Pattie Higgins had not seen another soul, aside from each other, for days.

So when a break came on Thursday, the couple gazed across the carpet of snow five feet deep that blanketed their lawn in this Erie County town and kept them trapped since Monday night.

And then they prepared for more.

“This is western New York; we’re used to it,” Mr. Fasanella, 62, a lifelong Buffalonian, said. “But this is the worst I’ve ever seen. Even worse than the blizzard of ’77.”

Across Buffalo and especially in its southern and eastern suburbs, people were reeling from the storms that by Thursday evening had claimed 10 lives. At least one nursing home was evacuated. Roofs were buckling. And with a state of emergency declared by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, rescue crews from as far away as Long Island were converging to help the area dig out.

                On talk radio, listeners called in to trying to locate friends or relatives who had missed appointments for dialysis. Alongside snowbanks 10 feet high, people dragged sleds laden with beer.

Early in the afternoon, whiteout conditions descended on Orchard Park, where crews working to keep the parking lots clear at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Bills, stopped their plows, unable to see beyond their windshields. Snowdrifts covered the doors to the team’s offices adjacent to the practice facility, and the stadium nearly disappeared in the storm.

One of the few refuges in the affected area was a Tim Hortons coffee shop inside a Delta Sonic gas station on Southwestern Boulevard in Orchard Park.