I am not from the Buffalo area - but here are some things I've heard - Dh flew into Syracuse last night and knew of some flights into Buffalo being cancelled - morning news reported something like 160,000 (edited - now up to 350,000 - expected to be out for some into next week) without power - mostly north of Buffalo in the suburbs....
am going to try to post our latest info:
Western New York clobbered by record snowfall; 350,000 lose power
10/13/2006, 10:51 a.m. ET
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
The Associated Press
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) Up to two feet of snow from an extraordinary fall storm closed roads, cut power to some 350,000 customers and left this city paralyzed as officials banned driving in the region Friday.
The snow, delivered in a fury of thunder and lightning, blanketed Buffalo and surrounding areas Thursday night and early Friday. A 105-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway from Exit 46 at Rochester to Exit 59 at Dunkirk, southwest of Buffalo, was closed Friday morning because of heavy lake-effect snow. Food and water was being delivered by snowmobile to stranded motorists on the highway. Normally busy downtown streets were empty as residents tried to push their cars from snowbanks and shovel out the wet, heavy snow.
"It's phenomenal. It's October. There's three feet of snow in your yard and all the trees are down. No power," said Ron Pellnat, surveying the damage. "It's Friday the 13th, how about that. I'm not superstitious but it's kind of coincidental isn't it?"
Trees and hedges that had yet to lose their leaves crumpled into heartbreaking heaps. Unharvested apples and pumpkins were buried and schoolchildren who began the week with the Columbus Day holiday ended it with a snow day.
The season's first snowfall in western New York left more than 350,000 customers without electricity.
Gov. George Pataki was headed to the scene Friday morning and he was expected to declare a state of emergency for the four hard-hit counties.
As of 8:30 a.m. Friday, 18 to 24 inches of snow had fallen in the general Buffalo area, said Tom Paone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The snowfall had moved north over Niagara Falls and "at least for the immediate Buffalo area, the worst is over."
"We just missed getting hit by a (falling) branch," said Maxwell Ellis after driving into Buffalo from the northern suburb of Kenmore Thursday evening for a gubernatorial debate between Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican John Faso.
Ellis had pulled out his boots, a hat and winter coat but others were unprepared, using sleeved hands to clear snow from their cars and tiptoeing in shoes.
On Thursday, 8.6 inches of heavy snowfall set the record for the "snowiest" October day in Buffalo in the 137 year history of the weather service. The record lasted for all of one day as a foot of snow fell early Friday. The previous record of 6 inches was set Oct. 31, 1917.
Tom Niziol, also a meteorologist with the weather service, said the northern half of Erie County and southern Niagara and Orleans Counties were among the hardest hit areas.
"This is an extremely rare event for this early in the season," Niziol said.
The Buffalo Police Department received more than 3,000 calls late Thursday and about two-thirds were related to the weather, Lt. James Watkins said.
"We had a lot of trees down, wires down, accidents galore," said John Kujawa, a city police officer who got off of work at 1 a.m. Friday.
National Grid, which reported 230,000 customers without power, worked through the night to restore power, but many were expected to be without power through the weekend and into next week, spokesman Steve Brady said. A major problem was getting crews on the road, he said.
"Our people are getting stuck in the driveway here," Brady said. "Many of the roads are, if not impassible, near impassible. We're just having a hard time getting people from point A to point B."
The company was trying to mobilize more than 400 line crews and another 200 forestry crews.
New York State Electric & Gas reported an additional 120,000 without power in the region.
Unnecessary driving was banned in Buffalo, its largest suburb, Amherst, as well as the suburbs of Blasdell, Orchard Park and Hamburg.
"We have a condition where 80 percent of the roads are impassible," said Lt. Stephen McGonagle of the Amherst Police Department
The airport closed for less than two hours late Thursday and then closed again during the night. Crews were working to clear runways Friday morning and flights were expected to resume at noon, an airport official said.
Tree branches were strewn and then buried on roads. A large box maple tree split in half, falling on Joan Casey's midtown Buffalo home and then landing on her second story deck.
"The whole house shook," Casey said. "We were very afraid. Originally I thought it was just the thunder, and then I came outside and I couldn't believe it."
Buffalo resident Denise Hanlon was equally shocked as she lamented the likely loss of a newly planted hydrangea tree.
"It was unbelievable" to see snow so early, she said. "And the thunder. It was so bizarre. It was just amazing."
One of the few signs of life Friday was children throwing snowballs and digging in snow on the unexpected day off from school.
"It's pretty cool because we get to build snow forts," said 10-year-old Christopher Platek. "We get to bury ourselves in the snow!"
(knock on wood).
