Thursday, October 12, 2006 will live in the minds of Buffalo residents for many years. It was the day the City of Buffalo was hit with what the National Weather Service initially predicted as an “unusual winter event.” The snow began falling at 3:00 PM; heavy, wet snow accumulated quickly, eventually knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of residents in Western New York. What made the impact of the storm more devastating was the fact that most of the trees in the region still had leaves, which, coupled with the heavy wet snow, caused branches to break and whole trees to collapse, bringing down power lines with them.
In the face of the increasing severity of the storm, Mayor Brown and his staff took immediate action, quickly opening the City’s Emergency Operations Center on the evening of October 12th. A State of Emergency was issued overnight by Mayor Brown, which included a citywide driving ban due to tree limbs and live power lines that were down all over Buffalo. Early Friday morning, the city opened the Emergency Call Center. By that afternoon, over 2,000 calls were logged in the Center and three Warming Centers were opened to further assist residents. The Call Center averaged 3,000 calls every
day following the storm (the Center averages 250 calls per day under normal circumstances).
At the height of the storm, over 80,000 National Grid customers were without power in Buffalo, and approximately
300,000 residents were without power throughout Erie County.Working collaboratively with public, private and nonprofit
partners, Mayor Brown managed the Emergency Operations Center for eight days until power was restored to all city residents.
Despite the impact of 2 million cubic yards of tree debris throughout Buffalo, city streets were passable within four days of the storm and tree debris removal crews continued to work around the clock to restore city neighborhoods to pre-storm conditions.
Mayor Brown designated the storm response as “Operation Restoration,” unifying the round-the-clock efforts of the Emergency Operations Center. These efforts soon included state and federal emergency response representatives as well as the city department representatives, emergency services groups, utility company representatives, and non-profit social
service agencies.
The City of Buffalo was credited for its swift, professional, and well-coordinated response to the impact of the October Surprise Storm. Within 24 hours of the storm, City Hall was re-opened and within 48 hours, a regularly scheduled home game of the NHL Buffalo Sabres took place before a sold-out crowd at the HSBC Arena.
Mayor Brown noted that senior members of this Administration had participated in a comprehensive disaster reparedness exercise during the spring of 2006. This exercise provided key city departments such as Public Works, Fire, Police, and Citizen Services, along with the Mayor’s Executive Department, with the necessary information and knowledge to respond quickly and effectively to the impact of the October Surprise Storm.
While a vast majority of Buffalo’s households lost power and 90 percent of the city’s trees were damaged in some way, power and normalcy returned to Buffalo in a remarkably quick time frame.