Buffalo Area Hit With More Snow as Storm Again Pounds Western New York

Lancaster, New York: Jack Fasanella and Pattie Higgins hadn't seen another soul, aside from each other, for days.

So when a break came Thursday, the couple gazed across the carpet of snow 5 feet deep that blanketed their lawn in this Erie County town and kept them trapped since Monday night.

And then they prepared for more.

"This is Western New York - we're used to it," Fasanella, 62, a lifelong Buffalonian, said. "But this is the worst I've ever seen. Even worse than the blizzard of '77."

Across Buffalo and especially in its southern and eastern suburbs, people were reeling from the storms that by Thursday evening had claimed 10 lives. At least one nursing home was evacuated. Roofs were buckling. And with a state of emergency declared by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, rescue crews from as far away as Long Island, New York, were converging to help the area dig out.

On talk radio, listeners called in to trying to locate friends or relatives who had missed appointments for dialysis. Alongside snowbanks 10 feet high, people dragged sleds laden with beer.

The NFL said the Buffalo Bills-New York Jets game scheduled for Sunday would be moved out of Buffalo. The NHL said it postponed a Buffalo Sabres-New York Rangers game scheduled for Friday night.

The leagues could simply shift gears, but people caught in the throes of the storm had little escape.

At the Garden Gate Health Care Facility, a nursing home in nearby Cheektowaga, Cuomo paid a visit early Thursday as state fire officials inspected the building because of the heavy load of snow on the roof. In the afternoon, the officials found that some of the beams supporting the roof showed signs of buckling and ordered the evacuation of the residents and the staff to an office park. At a strip mall next door to the nursing home, the weight of the snow - which experts said was like two cars parked on the roof - caused a partial collapse. No one was injured.

By then, another torrent of snow was slamming in from Lake Erie, bombarding the towns south and east of Buffalo and astonishing many people used to the rigors of the area's winters.

Here in Lancaster, Fasanella and Higgins, his wife, welcomed reporters who made their way through chest-deep snow Thursday, the couple's first visitors in three days. Road crews had finally reached their street for the first time since the snow started falling Monday night.

Higgins, 60, showed off the carbon monoxide detector she had been using to make sure the house's air was not fouled by snow-blocked vents. Caught without provisions, Fasanella smoked his first cigarette in three days and reflected on the previous epic storm.

"In '77 it lasted a week but it was mostly blowing," Fasanella said. "I remember walking through it. Here, you can't walk through this stuff."

"Many people are worse off than us," Higgins said. "But we can't even get out to check on our neighbors. The man next door is in his 70s and can't walk very well. We can't even get over there."

They looked out a window and saw the snow falling anew, the Buffalo sky turning iron gray again. Ten inches of snow had fallen overnight, adding to the 60 inches on the ground Wednesday.

"We're worried about what's on the roof - it's 3 feet deep up there," Fasanella said, and referred to forecasts calling for warmer temperatures and heavy rains this weekend. "If it rains, it's going to get that much heavier."

In Lancaster, Orchard Park and Cheektowaga, three of the area's hardest-hit towns, cornices of ice and snow blanketing house roofs dipped down like frozen custard toppings, merging with snowbanks that towered 8 feet from the ground.

With people stuck in their homes with whatever supplies they had when the first wave of the storm hit late Monday, inconvenience gave way to worry.

Amanda Szczesniak, 28, lives on the border between Lancaster and Depew, one of the hardest-hit areas, and has not had heat for three days.

"When I heard the snow was coming on Monday, I had no idea how bad it was going to be," she said. "This is the worst I've ever seen that I can remember."

When Szczesniak realized mounds of snow were covering her furnace's ventilation ducts Tuesday, she could not even get into her backyard to try to dig out the blockage. A wall of snow more than 5 feet high barricaded her inside.

"Oh my God, what am I going to do?" she said, recalling her initial reaction. "I'm a live-alone, 28-year-old girl. I don't have a snow blower, just a shovel."

Her neighbors lent her a space heater so she can at least keep warm, but with each passing hour, she grows more worried about her roof.

"When the bans are lifted, my dad can bring his ladder and we can work on getting the snow off," she said.

Until then, like thousands of others stuck in their homes, she said she will just have to wait.

Early in the afternoon, whiteout conditions descended on Orchard Park, where crews working to keep the parking lots clear at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills, stopped their plows, unable to see beyond their windshields. Snowdrifts covered the doors to the team's offices adjacent to the practice facility, and the massive stadium nearly disappeared in the storm.

One of the few refuges in the affected area was a Tim Hortons coffee shop inside a Delta Sonic gas station on Southwestern Boulevard in Orchard Park.

Jim Mahoney rode 7 miles by snowmobile to get there. He loaded up on gas for his snowmobile and bought 48 ounces of milk, cleaning out their supply. Outside, it was snowing sideways.

Mahoney, who lives in Lackawanna, a city south of Buffalo along Lake Erie, said there was 7 feet of snow piled on his property. It took him and neighbors 10 hours on Wednesday to clear 200 feet to the end of their street.

"The supermarket across the street has no milk," Mahoney said. Putting on his gloves and helmet and zipping up his snowmobile suit, he lashed to his machine all the supplies he could carry and roared off into the storm.