Eden, N.Y. (WBEN) - Less than 24 hours after the latest burst of lake effect snow dumped some 2-to-3 feet of snow across the Southtowns, residents in communities like Eden, Hamburg, Orchard Park and East Aurora took to their snow blowers and shovels to dig out from the snow.
While residents like Duane got only about two feet of his snow at his house in Eden, he heard of more snow on the other side of town.
"I guess farther down in Eden, they got 35 inches, so this ain't too bad here," said Duane in an interview with WBEN.
He adds while this storm dumped quite a bit of snow in a short time period, it was also nothing compared to some other storms to hit the area in recent years.
"This one snowstorm, we had seven feet, it was halfway up this telephone pole. Me and my brother were digging, coming out, and we just got out, and here comes the big payloader, took all the snow away after we took two hours trying to get out to the road," Duane said.
Bob Hardy says while he got just a little over two feet snow at his house, he says his son was out-and-about for quite a while locally, helping clear out the snow from many driveways.
"Most of it appears to be just blowing, drifting snow and heavy, wet snow," said Hardy with WBEN. "My son's been out all night, yesterday, trying to keep up with everything. What he does is he cleans it out, and then when he gets a break, he goes back and cleans it out again. Now we've got to clean, we're going to get a couple days of good warm weather, hopefully we'll get rid of a lot of the snow."
While the lake effect snow that struck the Southtowns dropped a considerable amount of snow in such a short timeframe, especially with one part of Eden receiving 12 inches in a two-hour span, Hardy was not surprised by its impact.
"The wind, you have no control over it. Wherever it changes from whatever direction, you're going to get hit, and it happens at least twice a year," Hardy said. "Last year was the same thing. We had two big lake effect storms. Other than that, we maybe got 4-to-6 inches a couple times. Other than that, it was just a drifting."
While some residents relied on their snow blowers and shovels to dig out, Alan Bratek was out in his Bobcat helping dig out neighbors, being accompanied by his daughter, Alexia.
"Wednesday through Friday, lake effect snow seems to be the norm every week now," said Bratek in an interview with WBEN. "A couple weeks ago, it wasn't too bad. But these past couple days, seeing an average of six-plus inches every hour was pretty crazy. It all came down at once and just never let up. I think we the sun for, I don't know, maybe three minutes yesterday, and it just kept on going."
Bratek admits he was a bit shocked by the veracity of the snow that fell over the span of just over 24 hours across the region.
"Everybody's a bit skeptical of the weather nowadays, you just never know what's going to come. The community here, it's so good. Everybody's willing to lend out a hand, everybody has a tractor, so everybody's out here clearing each other out, and making sure the ones that aren't able to are cleared out and able to get anywhere if anything happens," he said.
Meanwhile, some local snow plow contractors were even surprised with the amount of snow that fell with this latest round of lake effect snow.
Andrew Bray with Arbor Lawn in Orchard Park says it felt like the snow came down quicker and longer than what the first two lake effect snow storms produced a couple weeks back.
"I feel like we got a little more snow, which made it a little tougher to clear the driveways and the parking lots and everything. But definitely that second round of snow didn't help," Bray said with WBEN.
"I think I was more expecting, what I saw on the weather, was 18-to-24 inches, and we definitely got a lot more than that. So definitely a little bit more of a surprise, and definitely wasn't anticipating all of this."
Related
While many residents dug out from the snow on Friday, all those efforts will seem wasted in just a couple of days when the weather will, once again, warm up and likely melt most of the snow.
"That's the way nature goes, I guess. You've just gotta live with it," Duane said. "I'm glad just that it's over with for now."
"Of course it's a little frustrating. You'd always love to see some palm trees around here, but a snow day spent inside the tractor with my daughter, can't really beat that," Bratek added.
Meanwhile, the warming temperatures and subsequent melting snow is welcome news for Bray and other snow plow contractors.
"It kind of helps us, to be honest with you, when the snow all melts right after we get it. It definitely sucks having to do it while it's all coming down, it's all hard work, but when all that snow melts, it's actually easier for us to then go out again the next week and do it again so we have places to put the snow, not everything is too piled up and stuff like that. So having the snow melt definitely helps us," Bray explained.
