Zero visibility, whiteouts strand drivers as storm wallops Western New York

Battering winds with gusts approaching hurricane force began bombarding Western New York just as day broke and never quit.

Trees across the region toppled and tore down power lines, leaving tens of thousands without electricity as temperatures plummeted from about 40 in the morning to the single digits by nighttime.

Widespread snow blowing wildly in the wind turned to an intense and unusually wide lake-effect snow band that stretched from the City of Buffalo, over the Northtowns and into Niagara County, dropping heavy snow at a rate as high as 2 inches per hour.

Evacuations along the shore of Lake Erie were ordered as the winds pushed the lake water above flood stage. Lackawanna recorded a wind gust of 79 mph just after 10 a.m.

Travel bans were issued. The Thruway was shut down, as was the Buffalo Niagara airport. Bus and Metro Rail service were suspended.

And that was just Day One of a storm that promises to continue battering the region through Christmas Day.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service said Friday it appeared the lake-effect snow will continue to pound Buffalo, Cheektowaga, Lancaster, Clarence, Akron and the southern half of Amherst through Saturday night. Snowfall totals in some areas at the end of the storm could be up to 50 to 55 inches, meteorologists warned.

Public officials begged the public to stay home – and fight the desire to travel to be with loved ones for the holidays. They warned about whiteout conditions on the road, the dangers of hypothermia, the possibility of even more widespread power outages and the potential for freezing pipes to burst.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said there were stranded motorists all over the city and police officers and firefighters were doing what they could to try to help them.

"We're working to get to calls as best as we can," he said. "However, we are driving through the same challenges as everyone. Driving and getting stuck risks your life and the first responders' lives trying to get to you as well."

Police were asking people to only use 911 for true emergencies.

Gramaglia said nonessential motorists can be issued a city ordinance violation summons for defying the travel ban in the city. "Stay off the roads," he said.

Despite the warnings, some drivers tried to defy nature, and an untold number of vehicles ended up stuck off roadways all over Western New York.

On Friday afternoon, Deputy Joe Reeves of the Erie County Sheriff's Office and his partner were crawling along Transit Road near Sheridan Drive in their patrol car, looking for stranded motorists.

"There's a ton of people stuck. There are stranded people off the road," Reeves said in a phone interview as he drove at a pace of no more than 6 mph.

The snow was coming down so hard at 4 p.m. that the deputies had to keep stopping the car every few minutes to brush off the snow from the windshield. "It keeps freezing over," he said.

Visibility was "basically zero," he said. Reeves couldn't see past the crash bar on the front of the patrol vehicle. "I'm kind of using my GPS to know which streets I'm near," he said.

If they saw a vehicle on the side, they'd pull up and check to see if anyone was inside. Many were abandoned. But plenty were not. In one car, they found a young mother with newborn baby. "She was just discharged from the hospital and they were trying to get home and they got stuck at Transit and Greiner Road," Reeves said. The deputies escorted them home.

'It's getting worse'

The Town of Tonawanda was among the areas hit especially hard Friday, with one out of 10 residences losing power by nighttime, according to Town Supervisor Joe Emminger.

Several streets near Ellicott Creek were flooding Friday afternoon, and town officials were hoping that recent sewer line improvements will keep the chilly water from flowing into basements.

Limbs blew off trees “all over town,” and a big tree topped over onto a home on Yorkshire Road, causing an estimated $150,000 damage, Emminger said.

Nine people stranded at a Niagara Falls Boulevard hotel that lost power were taken to a town warming facility at the Hoover Middle School.

“This is a big storm, and it’s getting worse,” Emminger told The Buffalo News shortly before 5 p.m. Friday. “By the time it’s over, I think it might rank as the second or third worst storm we’ve had in this town since the Blizzard of 1977.”

Staff reporters Dan Herbeck, Harold McNeil, Barbara O'Brien, Stephen T. Watson, Aaron Besecker and Charlie Specht contributed to this report.