The death toll has increased to 37 as western New York experiences its deadliest storm in 50 years. The National Guard and other local officials have planned to conduct wellness inspections door-to-door around Buffalo over the next 48 hours in preparation for the storm’s death toll to rise.
Three of the 34 dead have not yet had their identities confirmed. County Executive Mark Poloncarz has urged relatives to get in touch with the local police in an effort to identify the deceased.
Poloncarz announced that the Buffalo driving ban will be prolonged at a press conference on Wednesday and that it would be reviewed overnight into Thursday. According to Polonzarc, it will take two days to add one lane to each city street.
Poloncarz also voiced his displeasure with the City of Buffalo’s response to the storm, particularly its snow removal efforts given that it is still the only area of Erie County with a driving prohibition in place.
“The mayor’s not going to be happy to hear about it, but storm after storm after storm after storm, the City, unfortunately, is the last one to be opened and that shouldn’t be the case,” Poloncarz said. “It’s embarrassing, to tell you the truth.”
“We will do what it takes in the future to ensure that our community is open as quickly as possible,” Poloncarz continued. “If that means we to hire more trucks and get more contractors and bring in more people to handle an area that Erie County has never been responsible for, we’ll do it. I just don’t want to see this anymore, I’m sick of it.”
At a subsequent press conference, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown addressed Poloncarz’s remarks, saying, “[Poloncarz] has never once explicitly… stated anything of these things to me. Therefore, it is a little unusual to state such during a news briefing. I have no idea where that came from.
Buffalo still has further difficulties as the city works to recover from the blizzard and clear the streets. The National Weather Service has issued a flood warning due to the expected increase in temperature at the end of the week.
Over the course of the blizzard, at least 60 individuals have perished in weather-related incidents around the country.