DUNKIRK, N.Y. (WKBW) — Dunkirk has received nearly three feet of snow since Friday, and as the snow continues to come down, tow truck drivers have been working non-stop.
Friday, snow started falling in Dunkirk, and in just a few hours, Pennsylvania, then New York State had closed parts of Interstate 90, but for Jim Ellman, the owner of Ellman’s Garage in Dunkirk, that started days of continuous work.
Me: “Do you think there were more people in and around the City of Dunkirk because the Thruway was closed?”
Ellman: “Oh definitely. With the 90 closed, they were trying to go down Routes 5 and 20, and they weren’t much better. They were sliding off the road there too.”
Jim takes both private calls and is contracted by AAA to help people in the City of Dunkirk.
He told me that he doesn’t have the proper equipment to help cars stranded on the Thruway, but when the Thruway closed, all traffic went straight to his coverage area.
“[By Sunday night] our guys, including myself, were so tired and exhausted that we basically called AAA and let everybody know that we were out of service at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night until 8:00 a.m. Monday morning,” Ellman said. “It was snowing so bad and it never stopped really.”
However, not every driver made it to Route 5.
I met Pawan Sharme in the parking lot of a Home Depot just off the Thruway. He was on his way back home to Canada, but he parked his semi-truck there on Saturday because he couldn’t make it any further.
“The road was blocked, 90 was blocked up, because of snow,” Sharme said.
Three days later, his truck is still in several inches of snow, and now it won’t start, leaving him stuck in the Dunkirk winter until it’s fixed.
After roughly three feet of snow in three days, things lightened up in Dunkirk, at least a little bit Monday morning, giving Ellman and Sharme a much-needed break.
