By Army Col. Richard Goldenberg
New York National Guard
BUFFALO, N.Y., Nov. 20, 2014 – For some 375 or so members of
the New York National Guard called out to assist in western New York's snow
emergency, the biggest impression was the stark differences in snowfall across
the various locations where a storm blowing off Lake Erie dumped up to 6 feet
of snow.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo initially called up than 240 soldiers
and airmen Nov. 18 to assist the city of Buffalo and Erie County in the
response to the historic snowfall. Within 24 hours, that number grew to the 375
expected on duty today.
The storm swept across Lake Erie on Nov. 17, creating bands
of snowfall familiar to western New York residents, but dramatic in the amount
of snow to pile up in just hours.
Lancaster, New York, just east of Buffalo, recorded more
than 5 feet of snow by yesterday. But just 6 miles away, the Buffalo airport --
outside the heaviest band of lake effect snow -- received less than 4 inches.
"We are deploying the National Guard to ramp up efforts
to keep western New York residents safe and to assist storm recovery efforts in
any way possible," Cuomo said. "Travel bans and advisories remain in
effect, and I urge drivers to stay off the roads so that our state agencies and
the National Guard can assist those that need help."
Interstate Closed, Cars Stranded
The storm forced the state to close the New York State
Thruway, Interstate 90, from Rochester west to the Pennsylvania state line.
Some 100 cars were reported stranded along that 140-mile stretch of the
highway.
The initial response included engineer soldiers and
equipment of the 152nd Engineer Company in Buffalo and the 827th Engineer
Company from Horseheads, New York, who deployed front-end loaders, Bobcats and
dump trucks to assist in snow removal operations beginning the evening of Nov.
18 in support of Erie County Emergency Management.
The task force was led by Army Lt. Col. Jim Freehart from
Troy, New York, commander of the 153rd Troop Command Headquarters, a
Buffalo-based Army National Guard unit. Additional staffing for the joint task
force came from nearby Niagara Falls in the New York Air National Guard
headquarters of the 107th Airlift Wing.
The engineers were in action right away the night of Nov.
18, assisting the New York State Police and the New York State Thruway
Authority in freeing a stranded bus carrying the women's basketball team
players, coaches and relatives from Niagara University.
"It was an amazing feeling," Rene Polka, the
director of women's basketball, told news reporters after the rescue. "It
was dark when we first became trapped early Tuesday, but when the sun came up
we saw how bad it was. Then it literally did not stop snowing all day, so we
thought we might have been trapped for a lot longer."
Initial Response Forces
The engineers were joined by National Guard initial response
forces from the 107th Airlift Wing at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station and the
642nd Aviation Support Battalion from Rochester. The two units worked
throughout the day yesterday to provide traffic control or assist in critical
snow removal.
The two elements provided 40 personnel and 10 Humvees to
assist the county's response efforts.
Airmen from the 107th Airlift Wing helped clear heavy snows
yesterday from the roof of the Eden Heights Assisted Living Facility in West
Seneca, New York. West Seneca experienced more than 4 feet of snow in just the
first 24 hours of the storm.
The New York National Guard doubled those initial response
forces yesterday with the call to two more elements from Syracuse -- the 174th
Attack Wing and 27th Brigade Combat Team -- to deploy and join the task force
today and assist as needed.
"We've brought in hundreds of National Guard personnel,
and we will be bringing in more to impart, supplement, but also to relieve the
existing personnel," Cuomo said in a news conference yesterday. "This
is going to be a multiday event, given the weather pattern, so we're planning a
four [to] five day workload, and we're adjusting accordingly."
The quick reaction of New York National Guard resources lies
primarily in the creation of winter response force packages that each major
command resources each year. These packages were then quickly relocated to
western New York to assist local authorities.
Snow Removal Trucks
Joining that force to assist the Department of
Transportation were two snow removal trucks from the 174th Attack Wing, along
with additional operators from the Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing from
Scotia, New York. The trucks partnered with local highway department resources with
snow removal of key roadways. The Oshkosh H-Series blower vehicle can throw as
much as 5,000 tons of snow an hour as far as 200 feet.
More than a dozen support missions were completed for the
city and county in the first 36 hours of response, clearing snow from roofs of
buildings at risk, transporting nurses to key medical facilities to ensure
continued service, removing snow from entrances to disabled home, assisting in
the recovery of stranded motorists, providing traffic control to law enforcement
to keep vehicles from closed roads and highways and assisting in the
large-scale clearance of vast amounts of snow to create access for first
responders.
Snow Removal Missions
Adding manpower to the physically demanding snow removal
missions on many critical flat roofs covered by heavy snow, 50 additional
soldiers from the Troy-based 42nd Infantry Division Headquarters also join the
force, arriving today.
Emergency responders' request for high-axle vehicles led the
Joint Force Headquarters to alert the 53rd Troop Command to deploy an addition
35 Humvees with some additional 70 military police soldiers from Buffalo's
105th Military Police Company to assist in traffic control as directed by local
officials from the Erie County Emergency Operations Center.
With weather forecasts showing continued snowfall through
tomorrow and a warming trend through the weekend that highlight flooding
concerns, New York National Guard leaders said they expect to maintain a strong
presence in the Erie County Emergency Management Office.
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