Military police enforce driving ban in snow-stricken Buffalo
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — State and military police were sent Tuesday to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads, and officials kept counting fatalities three days after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations.
Amid some signs of progress — suburban roads reopened and emergency response service was restored — County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that police would be stationed at entrances to Buffalo and at major intersections to enforce a ban on driving within New York’s second-most populous city.
“Too many people are ignoring the ban,” Poloncarz, a Democrat, said at a news conference.
The National Weather Service predicted that as much as 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) more snow could fall Tuesday in Erie County, which includes Buffalo and its 275,000 residents. County Emergency Services Commissioner Dan Neaverth Jr. said officials also were somewhat concerned about the potential for flooding later in the week, when the weather is projected to warm and start melting the snow.
The rest of the United States also was reeling from the ferocious winter storm, with at least an additional two dozen deaths reported in other parts of the country, and power outages in communities from Maine to Washington state.
On the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's reservation in South Dakota, there were plans to use snowmobiles Tuesday to reach residents after food boxes were delivered by helicopter and trucks over the weekend, the tribe said.
In Buffalo, the dead were found in cars, homes and snowbanks. Some died while shoveling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time to medical crises. Poloncarz called the blizzard “the worst storm probably in our lifetime,” even for an area known for heavy snow.
The winter blast stranded some people in cars for days,...