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I got a report that there are some single women and elderly people whose doors are completely blocked up with snow, are without heat, and can't get out of their houses. Make sure to check on your neighbors.
If you want it, you can come get the close to 7 feet of powder we got that is now compactred to 4 feet hard pack. Last saw this the blizzard of 77. My sister lived in Kenmore then and had 15-18" snow. Ours was over the roof of the house (1 story); this blew like mad and only went half way up my windows.
'77 was like nothing I've ever seen. The snow was drifted so hard from the 70 mph winds that you could drive over it without sinking in. Are they doing "iron snowdrifts" yet? (where the front end loader hits a buried car and digs it out a piece at a time).
True, the danger of roofs collapsing is not a fun thing and this storm was definitely a lot scarier and dangerous than a typical snowstorm (I wrote my comment before the storm began so mea culpa ). We have the same risk in New England but for different reasons depending on where you live.
Now I don't know what type of snow Buffalo gets. After all, Lake Erie is a different body of water than the ocean. Is the snow often light and fluffy or is it heavy? Is it very dry or is it wet? Then again 5 feet of light dry snow is still too much for a roof.
Light and fluffy was the start of the storm, but here it packs down. The more that came down, it packed down. I started with 7 feet and by the time our plow guy got a hi-lift here to dig us out Friday, it was only 4 ft. I could not have dug the light 7 feet, it would have blown and fallen in. I wasn't digging hard-pack. The rains came y'day, the temp rose today, I went out this am and knocked snow and icicles down and now our roof ( ranch) is pretty melted. The dark roofing helps -- never melted when we had a white roof.
Buildings made with flat roofs or of metal or big ones like barns ( like big dairy farms) are the ones to watch
'77 was like nothing I've ever seen. The snow was drifted so hard from the 70 mph winds that you could drive over it without sinking in. Are they doing "iron snowdrifts" yet? (where the front end loader hits a buried car and digs it out a piece at a time).
'77 was snow blown over my house roof in drifts. (There was 2 feet of powder on the lake and high winds to make it a blizzard.) This is not like '77 in that it was light coming down and then packed down, but it wasn't mid-winter and they announced earlier ( so only about 13 deaths - 2 in cars stuck in snow with plows piling it on top of them.). We had bad drifts, only 2/3 up the house this time, not over the roof. But, we still needed a hi-lift to get out of the hard-pack we had by Friday ( at the initial 7 ft. Lancaster got? I wasn 't shoveling) Yes, they towed cars all over. I am sure some will have massive damage. They sent the big Thruway plows that chop the hard-pack with augers and blow it over on the side of the road, with another regular plow behind on main roads here ( like Broadway) -- saw one yesterday. Today? With rain and 50 degrees? It looks like any normal day of snow in Buffalo outside my house, except for the huge piles by the road from hi-lift.
I'm glad this was now and not Jan!
I'm also grateful I live on 4 acres and people on either side have acreage and at the headwaters of creeks, not after it joins together. -- lots of ground to soak this up and a lot less chance of flooding.
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). We have the same risk in New England but for different reasons depending on where you live. 
