Two years ago today was one of the worst snow storms Buffalo had ever seen this early in the year. There was over 2 feet of snow that came down in 24 hours. Since it was so early in the year and all the trees still had leaves, it weighed the branches down and they broke off and fell on to power lines. I'm still not sure why it's like this but there is no law out here saying that trees can't grow into power lines. Obviously this was bound to happen since most the power lines go through trees, but whatevs. People in the east are tree-fanatics so I'm sure they didn't want to trim any of the trees down.
Anyway, two years ago on a Thursday it was about 8pm when we heard that there was a driving ban in all of Buffalo and the suburbs. At about 10:30 our cable went out. I thought nothing of it and we went to sleep. Apparently through the night there was thunder and so much snow that it began to weigh branches down on the trees outside and they began to snap and fall down. A lot of the trees hit cars and blocked streets. I'm a pretty sound sleeper so I knew nothing happened until I woke up at about 7 and looked outside. At the time we lived next to the highway (I know, ghetto) and there were tons of cars of the side of the road and the road in front of our building. We went outside to check it out and the snow came up to my thighs.
By the morning time our power had gone out which meant no hot water and no heat. I called my boss and we determined that it wasn't safe to be driving since I hadn't seen a plow in an hour and my car was being blocked by a huge branch. Then we called our friends to see if any of them had power. They didn't but had gathered over at Jimmy's house. So we got in the truck and drove over there. It was pretty scary but we made it eventually. We spent the day in the cold house playing games and that night we found the only place in the area with power. It was a bar that was running on generators. We headed over there for some hot food and warmth and to watch the Sabres game. The next couple days we spent most of our time there except to go home and sleep in the freezing cold apartment with every blanket we had.
We didn't have power for almost 5 days. I showered in cold water for the first couple days and then went to friend's houses that had gotten power back. Two of our fish died in those 6 days. One died because two others ate it's face off. Then one of the two left ate half of the other ones body. Pretty gross. All of our food went bad including everything in the freezer. Not fun to clean up. It was almost 3 weeks after the storm that the last people in the city got power. The lines for generators during that time was about 4 hours at any given time. They are still are re-planting trees they lost during the storm. It was a horrible, horrible experience and I never want it to happen again. Here are some links to stories about the storm. Wikipedia or CBS here or CBS here.
The huge tree that was in our parking lot...
The sunrise was the only light in the entire city.
The other tree that was in the front of the building.
The front porch.
Our grill was saved since it was right next to the fence. The tree branches fell around it.
This is one of the busiest highways in Buffalo and no one was driving on it. And that is a car that went off the side of the road and some power lines on the ground.
The sunrise.
That's me in the snow
The back tree a couple days after the storm
The tree in the front.
The top of the tree in front. Well what was left of it. The landlords ended up cutting the whole thing down along with the one in back.
* Macaroni Grill
* I had some good pizza and wings
