Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - "There is, of course, a State of Emergency in effect for all of Erie County. We were able to lift the driving ban in some communities but there still is a driving ban in the City of Buffalo," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says in his Monday morning briefing.
"There's still a driving ban, not just in Buffalo, but also in the towns of Amherst Cheektowaga, Clarence, Evans, Hamburg, West Seneca and the City of Lackawanna. I've talked to many of those officials, this morning and they are all in agreement that the driving ban will not be lifted anytime soon," Poloncarz says.
Poloncarz says while some of the main roads have started to open up, they are for emergency travel only and should not be used. Amherst Police are now cracking down.
"Now that they've settled down on life saving rescues, they are going to go out there and they're going to stop people at intersections," says Poloncarz after talking with Amherst Supervisor Brian Kulpa.
"They're going to see if they have emergency travel authorization and if they don't, they're going to ticket them and send them back on their way. It's the only thing we must do in this situation. Police have been working, round the clock on life saving measures so they have not been going out there ticketing people, but now they're going to because truthfully, you are harming our ability to recover and you may be the reason that we're not able to get an ambulance to a location because cars are still getting stuck out there," the executive adds.
Poloncarz notes the conditions are still bad and some towns are still getting hit with the snow, so please drive with caution if you are in an area where there is a travel advisory and not a ban.
There is an update on power outages, NYSEG only has 62 people without power in Erie County. National Grid has restored 13,000 customers within a 24-hour period in the area. As of 9:30 this morning, 12,473 are currently without power and most of those will be looked at and restored today, according to the report, "There are some that still might not get restored until Tuesday tomorrow, due to the serious nature of substation damage," said Poloncarz.
Some have lost their life due to the severity of the storm, Poloncarz updates,
"The Erie County Department of Health Medical Examiner's Office confirmed through last night, 13 individuals who had died as a result of the blizzard, died in a car died outside from exposure or died in a snow shovel or cardiac event regarding the snow blowing. I have the very sad news to report that in addition to the 13 confirmed deaths yesterday, the Erie County Department of Health Medical Examiner's Office has confirmed an additional 12 deaths bringing the total for the Blizzard to 25 deaths countywide. I do not have at this time, the locations, ages, genders or manner of deaths. We are hoping to have that very soon."
Poloncarz also reports someone has died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. He once again reminds others the community to not attempt to shovel or snow blow, as some deaths have been related to cardiac arrest. Snow should melt as temperatures are expected to increase drastically throughout the week.
Some households are running low on food, Poloncarz says most supermarkets should be open by Tuesday and the workers will be considered essential.