BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Neighbors and community leaders on Buffalo's east side are teaming up to prepare for the possible snow Western New York can face in the coming months.
A Buffalo mother of three, Latrese McFarlan, told 7 News reporter Yoselin Person it took her two hours to save her 24-year-old daughter during last December’s deadly blizzard — a storm that killed 36 people in Buffalo and 11 more outside the city.
“From Cambridge to Humber in the snow during the blizzard with the snow being sky high to go rescue her from her house,” she said. “I had nothing on but sweat pants, low tops boots, and I didn’t have a good coat, so I was trying to truck it, but to save my daughter I had to do what I had to do.”
McFarlan said by the time she made it to her daughter's house the lights miraculously came on.
But with the traumatic experience she and so many others endured, she’s hoping the city's plan for responding to winter weather will do more to help neighbors in communities like the Grider neighbrhood.
“Just make sure we don’t go through the same thing that we went through last year,” McFarlan says.
Meanwhile, community leaders like Candance Moppins, executive director of the Metro Community Development Corporation, are stepping up to make sure this time her community isn’t overlooked.
“We’re collaborating with other community-based organizations and food suppliers so if that happens again it’s more easily coordinated,” she says.
Moppins shared that she, too, faced the life-threatening conditions the blizzard brought.
“So my grandmother who’s 99, and I’m the primary caregiver, and my daughters we were all here because we didn’t have power,” Moppins said.
Moppins said they somehow made it to the Delavan Grider Community Center for shelter.
She said the gym was transformed into a safe haven for neighbors all over the city's east side.
Moppins said she’s helping the city help neighbors to prepare for the winter. The City of Buffalo is expected to release the recommendations of the winter task force and send its snow plan to the Common Council by the end of this week.
“The City of Buffalo has created a plan and we’re involved with that plan and that’s the winter preparedness classes where we’re going to provide winter kits,” Moppins said.
The city will host a winter preparedness event at the Delavan Grider Community Center on November 14 at 5:30 p.m.
