the surprise october storm

October 12th was the second anniversary of the surprise October storm. It was an unseasonably cold day. It started to flurry around lunchtime while I was at work. It continued to snow throughout the afternoon. I could look out the window of our eighth floor office in the Larkin Building and see the Niagara section of the thruway below. By four thirty the cars were creeping along so I decided to take the back streets on my drive home.
The trees were fully leaved as it was early enough in the fall that they had barely started to turn color. The snow kept falling and accumulating on the trees weighing the branches down. As I was driving I saw whole trees had that fallen across the road in places. Policeman with flares were turning back drivers on Cayuga Road because it was impassable. After dodging the trees and inching through the deepening snow, I pulled into my garage.


my garage the following morning

On foot I headed toward my backyard because I could see that one of the main branches of one of our big maples had broken right off the tree and had fallen onto our fence crushing it to the ground. I had almost made it back to the tree when "crack" I heard another branch preparing to snap off. With my heart pounding in my chest I high-tailed it back to the house as the bough crashed to the ground behind me. Safe inside the house I called B to tell him that he had better head home soon or he may not make it.


the used-to-be very full maple in the backyard

All evening the eerie non-stop popping and crackling continued. We lost electricity so having nothing else to do, we walked from window to window calling out "There goes another one" or "That one sounded like a whole tree". It fact, it was a half of a tree. The large maple on the side of our house that had always produced a pinkish fall leaf that filled our living room with a beautiful pink glow on sunny fall days had spilt right down the middle. Half had fallen onto our neighbor's driveway across the top of their car. Power lines were down everywhere. Trees criss-crossed all the roads. Cars were abandoned. We stayed up late into the night staring out our windows in disbelief. We were unwilling to go upstairs to bed for fear of being crushed. All the animals that make their homes in the trees were fearful also. It was strange to see squirrels frantically racing around the yard and hearing birds chirping in the middle of the night.


the tree that split in half


our neighbor's car is hidden under that pile of tree branches


here it is


In the morning we couldn't make coffee or cook breakfast because we have an electric stove. Word on the street literally was that our fantastic grocery store, Wegman's, had back-up generators and they were the only business in the entire area that was open on that Friday. We trudged through the two feet of snow, crawling over trees and making our way past the abandoned vehicles. The line for coffee at Wegman's was about fifty people long. Just regular coffee. No lattes or cappuccinos were being served that day. We stood in the line and shared our stories with other folks. Some people from the nearby office park had been stranded in their buildings overnight and were buying toothbrushes and changes of underwear. Wegman's saved us. We were among the 350,000 families who had no power but we were able to sit upstairs in the warm dining area and use our laptops and recharge our phones at our oasis in the storm.
We were without power and phone for nearly a week. By Monday most of the major roads were cleared enough to go to work but I had to dress in the dark fumbling for two shoes that matched each morning that week and couldn't dry my hair.


on the road in front of our house preparing for a trip to Wegmans


another red car just down the street


The trees were devastated. Over 57,000 of Buffalo's trees were lost to the storm. Those that hadn't toppled had to removed because they had lost over fifty percent of their canopy. To this day trees that were damaged in the storm are still being removed. But efforts are being taken to replace 30,000 of those trees through programs such as ReTree and ReLeaf. Our grass grows better since our trees were stripped of their branches. Our fence has been repaired. Our trees are starting to repair themselves.


view of our house from the street


a head-on view from the street

B and I didn't live in Buffalo when it experienced the Blizzard of 77 and Mayor Jimmy Griffin told everyone to stay in their houses with a six-pack. I have experienced a Buffalo snow storm though and had to sleep on the floor of my cubicle as did all the rest of my co-workers. Nearly thirty years after that first memorable storm, I became a part of Buffalo's history having lived through the Surprise October Storm.