Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It has been more than a month now since the deadly Christmas Weekend Blizzard that rolled through Buffalo, grinding the city to a halt for multiple days.
Mother Nature brought with her that weekend some violent winds, paired with it some brutal wind chill temperatures, and heavy lake effect snow that buried much of the Buffalo Metro region under several feet of snow.
Despite the extreme weather conditions, a number of different emergency crews and other utility companies worked tirelessly to make sure people were safe, secure and warm during a once in a lifetime storm.
This included the folks at National Grid, who did everything they could over several days to keep Buffalo resident out of the dark, while ensuring they had electricity for heat, water and other utilities needed to wait out the harsh winter conditions at home.
"I was on the phone nonstop with utility crews. We pre-positioned 7,000 utility crews ready to turn on the power as soon as they could get access," said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this past Saturday at a ceremony honoring first responders for their actions during the blizzard. "The stories of them walking an hour in the cold trying to break into a station that was frozen solid so they could bring life-saving heat and warmth to people, and they were so frustrated they couldn't get through the ice. They felt the pain too. I honor them."
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown was also on-hand for Saturday's event at SUNY Buffalo State University, as he, too, wanted to commend the work of National Grid crews for their tireless effort to restore power to residents across the city and region.
"Like the Governor, I was on the phone with National Grid every day during the blizzard, around the clock getting updates, seemingly, every half an hour about power restorations. We knew how critically important those power restorations were," said Mayor Brown. "I spent just 24 hours without power in my home, and experienced how uncomfortable it was. We know that there were people during this blizzard that spent two days, three days, four days, maybe more without power. And as Gov. Hochul said, the National Grid workers here in Buffalo and those that came in from around the country, worked feverishly to restore people's power. They worked during the worst of the storm, missed their holidays. They stayed on the clock to work as quickly as possible to reach subsubstations, and to reverse power outages. I thank them for that work."
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During Saturday's ceremony, Hochul acknowledged there will be plenty of things to learn and improve upon to be ready for the potential of future storms to strike Western New York and the state again.
More than a month after the storm took hold of the region, National Grid is still doing their own evaluations of their actions during the blizzard, as they work to compile a detailed report to the Public Service Commission.
"In terms of the response time and in terms of equipment, the deployment of people and other resources, we've learned from every single storm. We drill for this stuff year-round, and actually I'll be in my second post-storm meeting next week where a lot of these kinds of thing is going to be discussed," said National Grid spokesperson Dave Bertola on Thursday during an event in East Buffalo. "It ranges from everything. From where do we put some of these folks up in hotels that are coming from all over the country to food, as an example, for our crews. We had everybody out in that horrible weather doing work to restore power, we need to feed these guys and gals, but we couldn't sometimes get food, as many people couldn't those few days. So right on through the equipment and the servicing of it. We're always prepared, we come to work every day prepared. We keep an eye on our own weather forecasting systems to make sure that we're prepared, we're always going to learn from this, and we're going to be even better moving forward."
While the response from National Grid to the Buffalo Blizzard may have been extremely challenging, given the storm brought extremely difficult conditions to the region, Bertola feels it was their level of communication that really stood out with how they were able to go about attacking the storm and executing restoration efforts.
"We were always hearing that somebody was out in the field, they ran into a customer or they helped somebody that had fallen in the snow, and things were blowing around or there was a specific area of the city or maybe Amherst that was also hard hit that needed attention. A lot of that messaging always found its way to our crews inside the building. I'm really proud of that," Bertola said. "Nobody wants their power to be out. We don't want anybody's power to be out either. This is a really well-oiled machine, and I'm really proud to be part of this team. Our crews are amazing, and I can't be more proud to be a part of this company."
During the storm that struck Buffalo, Bertola says National Grid had no issues with resources with more than 3,000 people from all over the country coming to Buffalo during the holiday weekend to help the community not only keep the power going, but also restore power as quickly as possible.
Where the biggest challenge during the blizzard response was notable was the accessibility of crews being able to navigate around the region and get to a site that needed addressing.
"We all know it was difficult to make your way down the street those few days. I was on with Susan Rose and Tim in the morning throughout the event, and it was a challenge," Bertola explained. "As we all know, the streets were not plowed or they weren't able to drive down on them."
During the blizzard, National Grid made its commitment to not only help customers get power back up and running, but to also help manage energy costs this winter, especially those facing financial hardships exacerbated by the blizzard.
That's why the company was part of a Community Resources Event on Thursday at the Johnnie B. Wiley Center on Jefferson Avenue geared for low-to-moderate-income customers. The event was hosted by Back to Basics Outreach Ministries - founded by Pastor James Giles - which responds to emergencies in Buffalo’s Black and African American communities by organizing local nonprofits to provide direct services to those in need.
Back to Basics has been helping to stabilize area communities like East Buffalo that were most affected by the December storm.
"We, in conjunction with FeedMore WNY and Back to Basics Ministries, donated 500 boxes of groceries to those in need. And then here on the second floor, we are partnering with more than a dozen agencies from other utilities, health providers and some others, American Red Cross is here, to just share information about what resources may be available to those in need," Bertola said.
"We donated, as a company, $500,000 back on Jan. 12. Two days ago, our National Grid Foundation matched that to be provided for just this type of outreach effort. We have a long history working with Pastor [James] Giles and Back to Basics Ministries, where we are distributing things like personal care items, clothing, toys, food. We've done it a couple of years in-a-row, we did it the week of the blizzard when the sun finally came out and the weather got a little warmer. We were out on Broadway doing that, we have today's event. We're always in contact with Pastor Giles and others in the community to do what we can to make things a little better for the people who needed the most."
As for future events, Bertola says National Grid will continue the efforts to help those and associate themselves with giving back to the community, especially after an event like the blizzard that affected so many.
"We have an annual Day of Caring through our Project C initiative. I would venture to guess we'll probably have something between today and that next one in September, I just don't know what that is just yet. But just to see all the hugs and handshakes and smiles on people's faces today, it's really gratifying to know that we can make a difference," Bertola said.