Some parts of western New York could see up to three feet of snow over the coming weekend. AccuWeather caught up with the commissioner of Erie County Emergency Services to discuss the biggest concerns with the approaching storm.
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00:00 Today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for Western New York,
00:04 including Greater Buffalo.
00:07 And joining us now is Daniel Neverth.
00:10 He is Commissioner of Erie County Emergency Services.
00:12 Daniel, thank you so much for making time for us.
00:16 My pleasure.
00:17 Well, Daniel, you have an important job here, especially as we get into this pretty volatile
00:21 weather situation later this weekend.
00:23 So what's the latest?
00:24 How are your teams preparing and coordinating with one another throughout Erie County and
00:29 the City of Buffalo?
00:30 Well, you know, I get asked that question quite a bit as the storm's approaching.
00:35 But to be honest with you, this is something that's a 365 days a year process.
00:40 We do the sunny skies planning for this as well.
00:45 So what we've been doing is just kind of dusting off some of the things that we've been working
00:49 on during the summertime and leading up to the winter months, post-blizzard that happened
00:55 a little over a year ago.
00:57 So what we do is we work with all of our partners, the state, the local, the City of Buffalo
01:02 in this particular case, and all of the surrounding towns and villages within Erie County and
01:06 our contiguous counties, just to make sure everybody's on the same page and that communications
01:11 matrix is there.
01:12 And then what we've done over the last several months is we've kind of tightened down too
01:16 with our communications to the community and the preparation of the community so that when
01:21 we have major impact events such as the blizzard we had or, you know, traditional lake effect
01:26 snow and the winds that we're going to have coming up, that everybody's prepared and everybody
01:31 knows exactly what the word prepared means.
01:34 So you know, being ready to go, being set if you're driving, having a kit ready, or
01:39 if you're going to be home and you potentially lose your power, that you can be self-sustaining
01:43 for an extended period of time.
01:45 And you know, the people of Western New York, especially lake effect countries, south of
01:49 Buffalo, OP, Hamburg, places like that, they're no stranger to the snow.
01:54 But what do you think will be the most challenging this weekend?
01:56 The heavy snow, high winds, or the cold?
02:00 I think it's all of the above.
02:02 We're just coming out of about five days where people in some of the areas have been without
02:07 power.
02:08 All of the power has been restored.
02:09 So that was kind of a challenge.
02:11 The fortunate early in the week it was much warmer.
02:14 It's hard to believe it was 55, 56 degrees just a few days ago.
02:17 And it's even relatively warm now as the backside of this storm approaches, or the front side
02:22 I should say, before we get into the back and the cold.
02:24 So I really think the challenges are going to be maintaining power in areas with the
02:29 strong winds, doing what we need to do in the event that there is a loss of power, and
02:35 then coordinating all of the activities that are going to be taking place within the Western
02:39 New York region this weekend.
02:41 It's a holiday weekend.
02:42 There's a lot of hockey tournaments that take place in the Western New York area, kind of
02:46 one of the cradles of hockey activity.
02:48 There's an NHL game tomorrow afternoon, right as things start to crank up.
02:52 With regards to this weather system, there's a couple of festivals going on.
02:55 There's a lot of activity, and then of course there's an NFL game on Sunday.
02:59 So a lot of moving parts, a lot of decisions to be made, and it's just a matter of staying
03:04 on top of that, watching the weather, and watching where those bands are.
03:07 The one positive, it doesn't seem as if they will be oscillating throughout the course
03:11 of this.
03:12 So we're keeping our fingers crossed that no one area will get that traditional concentrated
03:17 amount of snow, which in the past has resulted in some cases of six feet plus.
03:23 And earlier, Erie County Executive Mark Polencarz told AccuWeather Sunday 1 p.m. NFL playoff
03:29 game, AFC matchup, might not, well it's not going to be moved to a different city, but
03:34 the game could be shifted in time or maybe even changed days.
03:38 So what's the latest and what are your safety concerns for that game?
03:41 So we work very closely again on game days at the stadium as a county facility, and we
03:47 work very closely with the Buffalo Bills in this particular case, as well as our state
03:50 partners and all of those players that are off of the field, law enforcement, all the
03:57 other public safety individuals.
03:59 So this is a decision that will have to be made obviously with some input from public
04:03 safety, but ultimately it's the National Football League, it's the networks, it's everyone else
04:08 that has to get together and decide what exactly is best.
04:13 We do see forecasts change from time to time, so there's still plenty of time to be able
04:18 to make those adjustments.
04:20 Friday night before a Sunday game maybe isn't the best time to do it because we want to
04:24 get a little bit higher confidence on that.
04:26 It's not my decision, it's not any one individual's decision.
04:31 I can imagine a lot of discussions that are going on behind closed doors right now.
04:37 Well thank you Commissioner Daniel-Navarroff for your time.
04:41 My pleasure.
04:42 warm. You do the same.