Starting Friday, Greg Lodinsky stayed in the warmest room inside his apartment at North and Mariner streets – the bathroom, which doesn't have windows.
With the door closed, Lodinsky burned four thick candles that he placed on the toilet, put his plants in the bathtub, wrapped himself in blankets and used cushions from his couch to form a bed. It wasn't ideal, he said, but it kept him warm.
With the heat still off – and after the urgings of his children and a brother living in Cairo, Egypt – he went to a friend's house a mile away.
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"I had to do something because people were so worried," said Lodinsky, the principal at Leonardo Da Vinci High School. "But I was starting to get worried, myself."
Restoring power to Lodinsky's apartment building and thousands more who remain without it is not going to be an easy fix and will likely not occur until at least Tuesday, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Sunday.
More than 29,000 customers remained without power in Erie and Niagara counties as of noon, including about 16% of city residents.
Niagara Grid reported more than 25,000 customers in Erie County and about 2,000 in Niagara County without power. New York State Electric and Gas had about 1,500 customers in Erie County waiting for heat and electricity to resume.
"They are dealing with substations in Buffalo being snowed in and frozen, as well as usual loss of power due to trees and power lines down," Poloncarz said.
The county is assisting National Grid in getting to substations and helping to clear them for utility work crews, providing snowplows and high lifts.
This was the breakdown by municipalities most impacted as of Sunday afternoon.
• Buffalo: 18,877
• Amherst: 3,378
• Cheektowaga: 1,860
• Town of Tonawanda: 1,365
• Clarence: 588
• Wilson: 526
• Lackawanna: 373
• Newfane: 292
• Royalton: 230
• Hartland: 219
• Lewiston: 212
• North Tonawanda: 211
• Village of Lancaster: 102
Cars are buried in snow on Christmas Day in the Elmwood Village in Buffalo.
Among those in Buffalo without power since Friday were Amanda Hopper, Marysia Paradis and their two roommates who share an apartment on Allen Street in Allentown.
By Sunday morning, their apartment was down to 50 degrees, Hopper said, and the roommates were doing everything that could think of to trap warmth in their home.
"We put a terracotta pot on top of a candle. We've been boiling water in a pot ... " she said. "We have comforters nailed up over every couple of feet of the door frame to keep the heat in."
Amanda Hopper and her roommates have been trying to stay warm in their Allentown apartment after losing power midday Friday. They have nailed comforters over the door, boiled water in a pot and put a terracotta pot over a candle to create warmth.
They worried about their pets – three cats, three rabbits and a lizard. They've been passing around the cold-blooded reptile, taking turns holding it under their shirts, to keep it warm. "Like a baby," Hopper said.
Hopper, a nursing assistant and emergency room technician at Sisters of Charity Hospital, hasn't been able to get to work. Her roommates are volunteer EMTs. They tried to use their 4-wheel drive Jeep to try to help, but there were so many cars stuck in roadways, there was nowhere for them to go.
"We couldn't make it out there," Hopper said.
With no idea when their power would be restored, the roommates reached out for help on the Buffalo Blizzard 2022 Facebook group Sunday morning. Soon, a neighbor who has power – and heat – offered his home. The roommates were busy packing up their stuff to make the trek.
"I think it's amazing. I love the generosity of everyone banding together," Hopper said.
Bernice Radle was worried about the lack of heat or electricity in the 11-unit apartment building she owns at Niagara and Jersey streets.
"It's just stressful," Radle said.
She gave a tenant the code to her office on the first floor of the building, so they could go into apartments and run water out of concern for frozen pipes.
There are families and elderly living there, and it's 38 degrees in their apartments," she said. "I've advised them to go to D'Youville or Holy Cross warming shelters, but until this morning, going outside was too dangerous."
Radle said that with climate change resulting in more extreme and intense storms, she hopes the city will start looking at long-term solutions, such as putting utilities underground.
"We're going to have more and more 'once in a generation' storms," she said.
For Nicki Amoroso of Cheektowaga, it wasn't the lack of power, but the ability to get out of the house that was the problem.
Because of a rare food allergy, Nathan, her 7-month-old son, requires a prescription formula she can only obtain through a hospital or pharmacy.
She reached out on the Buffalo Blizzard 2022 Facebook group to see if someone could loan her some because she only has enough for one more day. Her mom, who has been without heat for two days, was in no position to help, she said.
If she is not successful, Amoroso said she has friends who work for snow plow companies who could take her to Oishei Children's Hospital to get the formula.
Mark Sommer covers preservation, development, the waterfront, culture and more. He's also a former arts editor at The News.
