56 hours without power, and a backyard warzone
Snow in October in Buffalo is nothing new, and even the 14-24″ that some parts of Buffalo received does not break any records. But the 400,000 homes left without power after this last storm breaks alot of records, and alot of branches.
During the entire storm, the tempature never got below freezing, so all of the snow was wet and heavy, and some trees had not yet lost all of their leaves. Not a single tree in myback yard lost less than 1/3 of its branches, and a few trees were snapped half way up the trunk. Nobody slept that night because the cracking sounds of the snapping trees echoing all throught the neighborhood. I saw a 40 foot (12m) oak tree that was completely uprooted and had taken a pretty large utility line with it. Then, to cap it off, it has been mid-40’s (F) ever since with alot of rain, so now everyone’s basements are flooding since their is no power for the sump pumps. I actually drove 7 hours round trip to Pittsburgh to find a generator. By my quick tabulation, I moved 1800 pounds (3960 kg) of water from my sump to the utility tub to keep the basement from flooding.
All is good now, but we have been told that the power grid is still delicate and may go down again. Nothing like a harsh reminder of how dependent we are on electricity, and how helpless we are in the face of some natural disasters.