Right before the holiday. In one of the poorest cities in the country.

Exactly. It’s worth noting garbage pickup is delayed all of the time so this isn’t exactly a dire warning.

It’s true a blizzard and a hurricane are very different things. But actually many people’s pipes burst due to cold, leaving houses flooded and declared total losses. There were also trees down all over, some on cars and houses.

It’s not fair to say people should not have been out and here’s why:

1. People were not sufficiently warned. There’s warnings about severe snow storms a couple times a year in Buffalo. The messaging for this wasn’t drastically different. I’m a relatively informed person and from what I understood there was going to be an ice storm. I texted my manager the night before to ask him if we’d have to come in with a state of emergency declared. He didn’t know it had been declared. I’m signed up for the city wide alert system, which is used all the time for messaging about stuff like driving bans, trash pickup, parking, etc. No alert was sent out about this storm until after the blizzard had already started.

2. Driving bans are common place in Buffalo. Employers generally do not see an upcoming snow storm as a valid reason for employees to miss a day of work. A driving ban makes it illegal to require employees to come in. This also keeps people off the roads because, without employees, businesses close. Officials say the driving ban awas enacted around 9:30 but I didn’t receive the alert on my phone until after 10. The city, state, and county keep saying people knew how bad this storm would be and blaming them for not being prepared. If this is true, why didn’t they enact the driving ban the night before rather than when people were already at work and on the roads? The blizzard hit very fast and people were stranded trying to get home.

3. People were without heat or power in subzero temps. They left their homes to seek safety. The second leading cause of death for this was people who died in their homes.

The state, city, and county’s preparedness is a different story. It was announced on the first day of the blizzard that no emergency services were available and they weren’t restored for days, even after the blizzard had already ended. The city wasn’t dug out for a week, while surrounding suburbs that experienced the same weather and similar obstacles were cleaned up in a matter of days. During this time people were still stuck in their homes with no heat and power. Buffalo has a failing infrastructure and unfortunately it led to mass loss of life. The vast majority is the blizzard’s deaths occurred within the city.