On Jefferson Avenue, a community still reeling from massacre endures another trauma

Seven and a half months ago, a man with hate in his heart brought unimaginable horror to this very location. Ten people were killed. Three more were wounded. An entire community was left in shock and grief and is still reeling, knowing that the killer chose this store in this neighborhood in Buffalo with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible.

The mass shooting took place as the region seemed to finally be emerging from the misery of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some neighborhoods of Buffalo were especially hard hit. At the onset of Covid-19, per capita case counts were 88% higher in the county's five majority Black ZIP codes than they were in the rest of the county.

And now, a blizzard of unprecedented fury has brought yet another trauma on Buffalo, this time on the entire city.

"Ground zero," said Lester Sykes, as he sat in his pickup truck in the parking lot of Tops. He had just driven a friend to do some grocery shopping after she ran out of food.

Sykes said he recently moved back to Buffalo and has been fixing up his mother's old home. He lost heat at one point but was able to use an electric heater to stay warm. "It was shaky," he said.

He was lucky. More than 20,000 households in the City of Buffalo alone lost power in the blizzard, along with tens of thousands of other homes.

On Wednesday, the parking lot, which had become a staging area for out-of-town crews, was dotted with the vehicles of shoppers. Dozens came on foot, heeding the driving ban still in place at that point, to stock back up on food and other necessities at the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue.

Many of those interviews said they had no power for several days.

Among them was Jerome Bridges, who works at Tops. 

He was at the store on that horrific day on May 14, working as a scan coordinator. Bridges was pricing items at the back of the store, when he heard the first shots. He and other workers and customers nearby hid in an employee conference room. They pushed a table against the door to keep the gunman out, he described to The Buffalo News. 

After the mass shooting, Bridges returned every day to keep vigil. “I can’t stay away. I’ve been here every day since the shooting,” Bridges told a reporter from The Buffalo News on May 19.

He returned to work at the same Tops when it reopened in July. On Wednesday, he was taking a break outside when another reporter spotted him.

During the blizzard, he heard about the reports of some looting in the area, so he walked over to the store from his home nearby on East Utica Street a few times to keep tabs on his Tops.

There were no problems at Tops, he said. But a sneaker shop on the next block over on Jefferson Avenue where Bridges also works was cleared out, he said, as was a Family Dollar in the same plaza. He was disappointed by that.

Bridges said he didn't get power back until Monday. He was safe otherwise but was aware of the suffering the storm caused.

Still, he said, what happened on May 14 was more traumatic for him. "I'm still not getting sleep," he said.

Mynishia Holley stopped for a moment outside the store with three big bags of groceries that she planned on lugging home. It was her first trip out of the house since the storm.

It was not easy, she said. She has four children – a 9-year-old and 7-year-old triplets. Their electricity went out on Dec. 23 and by that night all of the children's electronic devices, which were keeping them occupied, had run out of power.

"Oh, it was not good," she said.

Her family eventually ended up seeking shelter at School 17, where there was power. They were back home now, trying to get things back to normal.

Holley said she's not happy with how the city's leaders handled the storm. "It's been time for a change."

Patrice Cameron walked to Tops on Wednesday to buy a few groceries. She still had plenty of food, she said, but she needed toilet paper, some cleaning supplies, and her favorite Lifesaver mints.

"We lost power for 2½ days. It was ... OK," she said. The inside of her house was down to 33 degrees when the electricity came back on.

It's been a difficult year time for Buffalo, she agreed.

"It's time for a change," she said.

Yet, she believed that the city's residents have what it takes to make it through the aftermath of this latest trauma.

"We're Buffalonians," she said.