Western New Yorkers' holiday travel plans hit another snag on Sunday morning when Gov. Kathy Hochul said the Buffalo Niagara International Airport would be closed until "at least 11 a.m. Monday."
"Mother Nature really threw the kitchen sink at us this time," the Buffalo native said during her media briefing from Queens.
In a press release, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority communications manager Kelly Khatib confirmed the closure timeframe and said the airport has provided shelter for about 60 people with the assistance of the NFTA Transit Police, Buffalo Airport Fire and its Airfield team.
In addition to two fatalities overnight Friday in Cheektowaga, another person was found frozen to death in Buffalo, Poloncarz said.
Hochul described the blizzard conditions in Buffalo as "life-threatening" and noted the two deaths that occurred when medical personnel were unable to reach emergency situations.
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The airport has been closed since early Friday afternoon due to "hazardous weather conditions."
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz addressed county residents in a briefing Saturday morning after a "very, very bad night" due to a blizzard striking the City of Buffalo and its surrounding towns. Emergency crews spent much of Friday overnight into Saturday digging each other out, and two fatalities were reported in Cheektowaga in which EMTs could not reach the people in crisis. The hardest-hit areas of the blizzard had no access to medical personnel. Video courtesy of Erie County.
Ben Tsujimoto can be reached at btsujimoto@buffnews.com, at (716) 849-6927 or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.
