US Troops search for more victims as Snow Storm paralyses Buffalo region

BUFFALO: National Guard troops trudged door-to-door on Wednesday looking for winter storm victims who may be unaccounted for in parts of Buffalo hit by prolonged power outages, after a deadly Christmas blizzard that buried New York’s second-largest city in blinding snow.

The fiercest blizzard to strike western New York in 45 years was part of a wider winter storm front and arctic blast that drove freezing temperatures as far south as the Mexican border for days, leaving scores dead nationwide, including at least 38 in the Buffalo area.

Many of the dead in and around Buffalo, which lies at the western edge of Lake Erie near the Canadian border, were found frozen in cars or in snowbanks, while some died from cardiac arrest while shovelling snow, according to Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive.

Poloncarz updated the death toll from the blizzard on Wednesday, reporting 37 deaths in Erie County, with one other storm-related fatality in neighbouring Niagara County. An unspecified number of the victims had yet to be identified. The city of Buffalo accounted for 29 of the dead.

Poloncarz said the National Guard was conducting wellness checks in each neighbourhood of Buffalo and its suburbs where electricity was out for lengthy periods, looking for anyone who may have suffered hypothermia or some other medical distress while trapped indoors without power and heat.

“We are fearful there are individuals who may have perished living alone, or two people who are not doing well in an establishment, especially those who still don’t have power,” he told reporters.

He said paramedic squads would also visit every household where residents had called the county’s special snowstorm hotline for help but were beyond the physical reach of emergency personnel at the height of the blizzard.

By late Wednesday night, Guard troops had checked on 850 homes, Poloncarz said. Virtually all electricity had been restored by Wednesday evening throughout Erie County, with just 62 customers that utility crews hoped to have back in service in a matter of hours, he said.

At the same time, nearly 80 front-end loaders were working around the clock to shovel tons of snow into about 120 dump trucks to be hauled to disposal lots. The goal was to get at least one lane of traffic open on each street by Wednesday night, Poloncarz said.