The travel ban was still on in the city of Buffalo Wednesday morning. But with travel restrictions lifted outside the city Tuesday, people were digging out from what may go down as the worst blizzard in Buffalo’s storied snow history.
Emily Donnelly of Williamsville finally got out for pizza Tuesday after almost five days hunkered down.
"It was the greatest pizza I’ve ever had," she said, cocktail in hand. "We looked around and were like why does this taste so good?!"
Donnelly had power but thousands weren’t so lucky. Many of them sought out shelters for warmth and food.
The northern suburbs of Williamsville, Amherst, and Cheektowaga — often used to watching lake effect snowstorms pummel the southtown suburbs — were some of the hardest hit by this blizzard.
Loren Irmisch grew up in Williamsville and says Buffalonians are used to snowstorms. "Usually it’s one day of snow and it gets cleared and you’re out the door," he said. "That did not happen this time."
Hundreds of people got stranded in their cars and had to be rescued. More than 30 people died.
On Williamsville's Main Street, a guy muscled a snowblower through the packed snow on the sidewalk while his partner, Peter Pilc, plowed another driveway.
"It’s gonna take days, days to clean up from this," he marveled, beside himself at all the cars on the roads, even though traffic was limited to one lane in each direction due to walls of snow. "People wanna go out sightseeing. It makes our job even harder."
Pilc’s been plowing for eighty hours he figures, all the while getting frustrated that people keep going out when they don’t have to. "It’s murderous for these first responders and guys like me who are just trying to do our jobs and make it clear, so you can get your cars out when you need to go back to work."
A thaw starting Wednesday will help, but now the concern turns to flooding as all the snow melts.