EAST AURORA & N. TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — The 7 News team was scattered throughout the region Wednesday to hear from neighbors, community leaders and first responders on preparations and clean-up efforts, as the heart of the lake band sat right over Western New York.
Two city officials shared what neighbors can expect overnight and the resources available to help keep them safe.
The City of North Tonawanda wanted to ensure to take a proactive approach to clearing its roads as snow will continue to fall into Thursday.
Mayor Austin Tylec was prepared for the highs and lows and wants people to take extra precautions and avoid unnecessary travel.
"Essential workers can move as they need. In our police department, I spoke to our police chief. We're not going to be going after people, ticketing, like some are saying it'll be warnings. We just want to keep people off the roads if people are at work right now and they have plans to get home, we just want to you to get home safe," City of North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec said.
A driving ban that was in effect was lifted Wednesday at 8 p.m., thanks to the Department of Public Works clearing roads.
A travel advisory is still in effect until noon Thursday.
If there is any kind of mass outage city officials have a location in place for service.
"We do have our fire companies open for service. We ask people to contact my office or the fire department headquarters if there is a mass outage. We do have the resources available if need be," Tylec said.
Meanwhile, the town of East Aurora had a rough start to its morning Wednesday but crews were able to keep up into the night.
Town of East Aurora Highways Superintendent David Gunner said, "We spent our day today cleaning up to get prepared for the next band, pushing back snow banks and drifts all day. The wind has been really howling and have had to stay out pretty much around the clock."
Crews are working 24-hour shifts and anticipating a rough night for Wednesday.
Anyone who needs an emergency shelter can go to the Town's Senior Center!
Gunner said, "We have our Senior Center. It hasn't been opened because I don't believe we've had any issue. We haven't had any power out so if we had an issue with that, we would have been able to open it immediately."
As for transportation at the public and aviation level, NFTA told Pheben Kassahun the metro is operational outside of the south of the City of Buffalo.
"Metro is operational apart from suspended bus service south of the city of Buffalo. We have suspended several express trips due to weather conditions. Currently there are no issues with Rail Service. We have just over 180 scheduled paratransit trips, but clients are cancelling many of these trips and we are cancelling those trips that are originating in areas where bus service has been suspended.
All flights are canceled out of Buffalo Airport except three inbound Delta flights. We are expecting flights to start going back out sometime tomorrow morning around 8 AM. The airport remains open, and the main runway (5-23) is in good shape. We have 2 -5,000-gallon tankers with Rwy deicing fluid at the ready along with a snow melter that can go through 135 tons an hour. We have double our normal airfield staff on duty right now , including our regular contractor, Lakestone ,so when this starts to clear up, we can have things running back smoothly at the airport as fast as possible."
Kelly Khatib
NFTA Spokesperson
