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Residents recount snowstorm, band together to remain upbeat
By John J. Hopkins
 | | KING SIZE LINCOLN LOGS...Christopher and Alana Szumla of Parkedge Drive try to lend a hand with the cleanup after the storm. (Times photo) |
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Almost every resident has a story to tell about Cheektowaga's October 12-13 snowstorm that piled 23 inches of heavy, wet snow across the town, disrupting power to thousands and downing trees and utility wires.
Throughout Cheektowaga, Depew and Sloan, residents could be found on Friday and Saturday assessing damage or shoveling snow. Since Sunday, most have been clearing debris from their yards.
Street after street, block after block, the town and villages looked like a hurricane had struck, except for the snow, most of which had melted by Monday afternoon.
Despite their own troubles, many neighbors helped each other. Those with electricity shared their power by stringing electrical cords across roadways to neighboring homes.
Others welcomed their neighbors into their homes, while more than 100 senior citizens sought refuge at the Cheektowaga Senior Center, which served as a temporary shelter.
One of the hardest-hit areas was north Cheektowaga, such as along Lucille Drive, near the Vales section where New York State Electric and Gas officials were replacing utility poles.
"I've lived here all my life and I've never seen anything like this," said Gary Synak of Lucille Drive. "We survived the floods of '62, but this is crazy."
Synak was watching crews finish replacing a utility pole in a rear yard.
"I heard the pole snap in two at two in the morning," Synak said of the Friday event. "That's when I lost power and (that time is where) my clock's stuck."
The utility pole left a power line taut as it stretched across the street, but only about eight feet off the ground. One block north, on Carolyn Court, the line was only about chest high.
Synak's Lucille Drive neighbor, Dave Dufrene, used a chainsaw to cut tree limbs that he feared would crash into his home. He also helped cut branches in some of his neighbors' yards.
"We used the chainsaw to get what we could," said Dufrene. "My tree fell down while I was helping the others."
Still, Dufrene said that the storm provided an opportunity for neighbors to help each other out.
"We're getting to meet our neighbors," Dufrene said, "but next time we'll just have a block party."
Dufrene, Synak and their neighbors were filling up each other's gas cans. As the containers were emptied, residents piled them in a common collection area where they took turns hauling them to the gas station for refills.
In south Cheektowaga, residents were also coping with downed trees and removing snow.
"This is as bad as the Blizzard of '77," said Mike Pryndota, as he and his wife, Maria, worked to remove snow from their Philip Drive driveway to get Mike's car out. "This may be worse. There seems to be more damage."
Maria joined many residents in wondering where all of the snow came from, noting that the forecast called for three inches. Informed that the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport recorded almost 23 inches, Maria replied, "It feels like it," as she lifted another shovelful of the wet white stuff.
Their Barbados Drive neighbor, Leonard Mazur, lost two locust trees in his front yard. The trees, Mazur said, were planted 27 years ago.
Along Harlem Road, Richard and Roberta Jones of McNaughton Avenue were taking a break from shoveling their driveway to survey the damage and cleanup efforts.
"It looks like the middle of winter but it's too early," said Richard, as a backhoe removed snow from near the Reinstein Library. "This is definitely the earliest we've had it."
Roberta recalled hearing the unmistakable sound of tree limbs cracking in the middle of the night.
"It was around 4 o'clock. It sounded like firecrackers," said Roberta.
One large tree limb barely missed a neighbor's home. Richard said that the branch missed the neighbor's picture window by only 18 inches.
Walden Avenue resident Joe Vrickner recalled watching two trees succumb to the snow's heavy weight early Friday. The branches of a willow tree appeared to spread out.
Vrickner said he measured 22 inches of snow sitting atop a traffic light regulator at the corner of Walden and Reo Avenue at 4 a.m.
"The snow was coming down like rain, but they were big flakes," Vrickner said, adding the lightning cracking through the night sky was a sight to behold. "It was the most beautiful color of purple and blue I've ever seen."
Christine Oldfield was awakened at 2 a.m. Friday when a giant weeping willow tree split into three at its base. Each portion went in a different direction, and the base of the trunk pooled up with water.
"I heard a thump, and the whole house shook," said the George Urban Boulevard resident. "I thought it hit the house. I didn't think we were going to make it through the night."
The tree damaged Oldfield's porch and two sheds on neighboring properties.
Escaping injury were three kittens that were living underneath the porch. Oldfield had the Buffalo Humane Society remove them a few days before the storm.
Oldfield's neighbor, Jan Harrison, also heard the tree collapse.
"At first I thought, 'great, not only snow, but an earthquake,'" Harrison said.
Dan Gentz was busy Friday afternoon sawing broken limbs from a large tree outside his French Road home, which he purchased from his grandfather. Despite losing some limbs, the mighty tree-a large landmark depicted in photographs dating to the 1940s- appeared to survive the snowstorm.
"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," Gentz said. "It looks like nothing broke through (the roof), but you could hear the branches banging as they hit."
Tom Zack's Borden Road home suffered a "double-whammy" from
the storm. A tree limb crashed through his roof, and his basement flooded with six inches of water.
"It's a disaster," Zack said Friday afternoon. "My wife called me at work at 1 a.m., hysterical, saying the tree fell. She heard something cracking, then the house shook."
Eyeing the tree from which the limb fell, Zack expressed concern that the rest of the tree could still come crashing down.
"The whole tree kept cracking last night," Zack said. "We still haven't been into the crawl space to see how much damage it's done."
Zack said that returning home from his job at Upstate Milk was an adventure, calling Borden Road "a war zone." The snow was falling so hard, he said he was better off using his flashers than his headlights.
Despite the unpleasant task of cleaning up, many residents also appeared to be taking the mid-October snowstorm in stride.
"Letterman and Leno will have something to joke about," summed up Leonard Mazur.
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