BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — Just down the thruway from Buffalo, one lawmaker says she's concerned about whether her community is prepared if a blizzard ever hit Rochester.
Rachel Barnhart, legislator, Monroe County Legislature, said she does not want Rochester to make the same mistakes she says were made in Buffalo.
“All I could keep thinking was ‘Oh my gosh’, I hope we learn some lessons from this storm because it could happen to any of us,” declared Barnhart. “This could happen here in Rochester. We're not that far away. We experience the same weather patterns.”
Lessons learned from Buffalo's deadly December blizzard are what Barnhart is looking to achieve.
Democrat Barnhart represents the 21st district in her county, which covers the city of Rochester.
“And the loss of life that disproportionately affected people in the City of Buffalo disproportionately affected people of color. That also really concerned me because we have the same vulnerabilities here in Rochester,” Barnhart reflected.
“Bottom line — a wake-up call for a county that's so nearby and has so many similarities to the City of Buffalo?” Buckley questioned. “Just reading about the neighborhood, reading about the people impacted by this storm. 46 people dying in Erie County, a majority of them in the City of Buffalo — that could have been us and it just really shakes you to your core to think about that,” responded Barnhart.
Barnhart sent out a Tweet along with a letter she wrote to Monroe County's Office of Emergency Management making sure they have quote, "incorporated any lessons from the deadly Buffalo blizzard" into their planning after it claimed 46 lives in Erie County.
The Monroe County lawmaker points to this 175-page NYU study, titled "Lessons Learned from the Buffalo Blizzard".
“One of the things the NYU report noted was people experiencing financial hardship may not be able to stock up on things before a storm, which is why they are out in the middle of it, trying to get food because they just don't have the resources to do that ahead of time,” Barnhart noted.
Barnhart says she wants to make sure her community understands the dangers of traveling and staying off roads before a major storm hits.
“And you know what, sometimes we might just have to go door to door. We did that when we needed to push out the message on vaccines went door to door,” Barnhart described.
Barnhart tells me she has no reason to believe her county isn't paying attention to Buffalo's blizzard lessons but wants to make sure her city is prepared.
