A
second wave of lake-effect snow began falling on parts of western and
upstate New York on Wednesday night, on its way to adding as much as
three more feet to the five-foot-plus blanket that's already paralyzed
much of the region.
Five to eight new
inches of snow were forecast overnight for Erie, Genesee and Wyoming
counties, including metro Buffalo, the National Weather Service said.
Two added feet are expected Thursday, topping off with anther five to
eight inches Thursday night. Because wet air blowing in from Lake Erie
is so much warmer than the prevailing air in the region, the result will
again be thunderstorms that drop snow, not rain — the oddity called
thundersnow.
The new snow began
falling as troopers in all-terrain vehicles and rescue crews working
without sleep were still trying to reach drivers trapped in the first
wave of the ferocious storm.
About
140 miles of Interstate 90, the main artery running east and west
across New York state, remained closed, from Rochester to the New
York-Pennsylvania state line. There was no word when it would reopen.
More than 100 cars were reported trapped. Drivers ran out of food and patience.
"Mother Nature is
showing us who's boss once again," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. "This
snowfall may break all sorts of records, and that's saying something in
western New York and in Buffalo."
A Greyhound bus was
stranded for a day and a half on I-90. People stared out the windows at a
highway littered with abandoned cars. The bus was running on a
generator, and passengers could charge their phones, but they were
hungry, said Endjie Ulysses, a college student who was on board.
After 34 hours, the people on board were finally rescued by a state trooper.
"I'm feeling OK. I'm just tired," Ulysses told NBC News by phone from the bus. "I've only slept for about two or three hours."
Authorities around
Buffalo reported the fifth, sixth and seventh deaths from the snowstorm:
a 46-year-old man found in a car, someone who had a heart attack while
operating a snowblower and an elderly man who needed care for what
doctors called an "urgent cardiac condition" who died because rewscue
crews couldn't get him to a hospital. Four deaths were reported Tuesday,
one in a car crash and three from heart attacks, including two people
who were shoveling snow.
The snow paralyzed
cities and towns. On social media, people posted pictures of drifts
taller than their garage doors and of whole houses all but invisible
under thick, white blankets of snow. Authorities responded to 911 calls
as they could, but ambulances couldn't get down side streets in some
places.
The
towns south of Buffalo were believed to be the hardest hit. Snow totals
were incomplete. The National Weather Service said some places could
approach the record for a single-day snowfall in the U.S., 6 feet 4
inches.
Outside, the temperature hovered in the high teens, with a wind chill below zero.
"Please do not be
fooled by the beautiful sunshine," Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.
"There is still tremendous amounts of snow on the ground."
The totals that did
come in from cities and towns in western New York were daunting: 5 feet 5
inches in Cheektowaga, 5 feet 3 inches in Lancaster, 5 feet in
Gardenville.
There was 4 feet of
snow in Orchard Park, where the Buffalo Bills are set to host an NFL
game Sunday , against the New York Jets. The team put out a call for
volunteers to help shovel the stadium clear of snow — an estimated
220,000 tons of it — and offered $10 an hour, plus tickets to the game.
The
weather service warned that 3 to 8 more inches of snow could fall
Wednesday and up to 2 feet more by Thursday night outside Buffalo.
Temperatures are expected to climb above freezing by Saturday — raising
the possibility of flooding as massive banks of snow begin to melt.
"When we say stay home, really, stay home," Cuomo said.
But Wednesday, the
focus was on the trapped. Before dawn, a college basketball team had to
be rescued after its bus got stuck in heavy snow for 26 hours about 50
miles from its home campus in Buffalo.
A crew of five people
using two heavy-duty snowplows finally cleared a path to free the
Niagara University Purple Eagles women's team, including players,
coaches and relatives.
"It was an amazing
feeling," Rene Polka, the director of women's basketball, told NBC News
by phone after the rescue. "It was dark when we first became trapped
early Tuesday, but when the sun came up, we saw how bad it was. Then it
literally did not stop snowing all day, so we thought we might have been
trapped for a lot longer."
Elsewhere, the last of
40 people who'd been stranded at a highway toll booth were rescued
Wednesday morning, said Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive.
Cuomo declared a state
of emergency for 10 counties, and the National Guard was activated to
help clean up. The state deployed 526 snowplows and 17 large
snowblowers.
It was a lake-effect
snowstorm, building up as it swept across Lake Erie, thrashing some
places but sparing others. Lancaster recorded more than 5 feet of snow.
Six miles away, the Buffalo airport got less than 4 inches.
The snow pattern was
part of a punishing blast of cold air so broad that temperatures in all
50 states fell to freezing or below. In all, 22 deaths have been
reported across the country since Saturday.
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