TOWN OF TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Genesis of the Buffalo Blizzard of '22 brought in whiteout conditions bright and early at 8 a.m., on that dreadful Friday leading into Christmas weekend.
"Yeah, we didn't know what to expect. It started Friday morning. We didn't know what we were going to wake up to," Reimer Home Services field supervisor, Brett Kelly told Pheben Kassahun Thursday afternoon.
Reimer Home Services president, Brandon Bieron added, "I think the storm in November, where we kind of got seven feet of snow in the Southtowns kind of gave us the indicator of, 'Hey, we're going to be able to get into people's homes. We have to find a different way to get creative to show up for the community and make sure people had heat."
Brett Kelly and Brandon Bieron knew plumbing and HVAC units needs were going to be a concern, especially knowing Western New York was going to be somewhat frozen in time with wind chills at subzero temps.
The Town of Tonawanda-based plumbing company was forced to pull its plumbers and technicians off the roads as a precaution to their safety, but that did not stop the phone calls from flooding into the office for help.
Kelly explained, "From that point forward, we started fielding the calls, putting them through our plumbers and technicians, who were able to talk to the customer, FaceTime with them, find a solution for whatever problem they had."
A simple FaceTime call was saving Christmas for Western New Yorkers, according to one review.
"Those types of moments — we're the City of Good Neighbors. We're here to serve the community. We're just really proud of how Brett, Andrew, Derek and the rest of the team showed up that day," Bieron said.
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, the Tonawanda location took more than 500 calls, regarding heating or plumbing.
Situations like being able to get boilers back up and running, to being able to have heat on Christmas Day, and that was their routine from Friday to Monday.
Kelly said, "Between all of us and the team, we kind of put a plan together to figure out how to organize the calls and to try to make sure to call everybody back, whether they were our clients, not our clients. We were just trying to help everybody. It's a stressful time, especially with the storm and stuff like that."
The gang showed up for the Queen City, without hesitation, and to think: all of it was free of charge.
Kelly recalled, "It was so busy, we didn't have time to worry about that. It was more or less, what we could do to get them heat. We talked to whoever we could, whether it was a neighbor helping them because a lot of these clients were elderly."
Throughout, yet another unprecedented experience, Kelly shared the importance of staying true to the golden rule.
He said, "I think, just being a good person in general, if can help somebody, why wouldn't ya?"
Those who would like to receive service from Reimer Home Services can visit www.reimerhvac.com. While the company is based in the Town of Tonawanda, it is important to note that the company services all of Western New York.
