BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Anyone who’s grown up in Buffalo or even spent a few years here has stories of the big ones. Lots of us remember the Blizzard of ’77 with drifts so high kids sledded off rooftops, and there was the 2006 “October Surprise” that flattened trees and killed power for a week.
This week’s storm, though, is a whole other story.
The forecast Monday threatened 1-2 feet of snow the next day, enough that I brought my laptop home in case of an impossible morning commute. Four days later, my car remains just where I parked it in the driveway of our south Buffalo home. It is immobilized by 6-foot drifts – not to mention a driving ban. And I’ve been filing stories from the bulls-eye of a snowstorm that’s awed even those of us who have been through it before.
My neighbors, at least those I don’t know well, must be wondering how it is that pictures and video of their socked-in homes have shown up on the national news. Even my own front yard has had cameos.
It’s what happens when you cover a story from a standstill – when a reporting trip consists of wading to the driveway.