Freaky Friday

Aww look, snowflakes! Yeah, they're cute, 'till they start ganging up on you. What the &$%#! This is a picture from the evening on OCTOBER 12th! Sure, some flurries in October are nothing new. Maybe even a dusting to an inch. But what transpired after this picture was something else all together. We had ourselves a honey of an October storm, people. I'm talking Biblical. Late the evening this photo was taken, Tahera and I ventured off to bed, marveling at the fact that the snow had actually managed to start "sticking" to the ground. But as we lay in bed trying to sleep, all sorts of ominous sounds filled our senses. First there were the frequent flashes of lightning and immediate booms of thunder, not so peculiar per se, but in the midst of an early October snowstorm? Oh yes...Freaky. But not as much as the popping sounds of branches and the siren call of fire-detectors going off as the power kept tripping off and returning. But last of all came the focal, flare like burst of blue-white light that came from outside the window as a power-line snapped loose under a falling tree branch. Oh yes folks, there are cute snowflakes, then there are Evil Swarming Snowflakes From Hell! We knew the morning would bring us some interesting sights, (if we made it through the night, that is....)

Here's a fellow Buffalonian's video from the overnight.

When morning came we awoke to an unimaginably thick blanket of snow (news reports have claimed some places received +18") Friday the 13th indeed. Tahera and I noticed this young tree bowing under the weight of the snow as it first began to accumulate overnight. From the repeated power outages setting off the smoke detectors and waking us up, we knew there had to be some branches giving way under all the added load. As we looked outside that morning we saw this. But even then, we were in for a surprise at how much damage there actually was.. 

Much bigger trees also couldn't withstand the stress. The leaves, acting like so many baskets served to catch untold pounds of the heavy, wet snow. Other people reported fully grown trees splitting completely in half due to the weight. As people began to venture out (ignoring the driving ban), it became apparent just how much damage the storm had done. In all honesty it looked like no tree was spared at least some damage. Branches littered every lawn and each street we passed.  

This is probably one of the most amazing scenes I saw after the storm. The white car on the right was surrounded huge fallen branches, but didn't have a scratch on it! Contrast that with....

This unlucky bloke, who was parked right behind the white car and got nailed. Oh yeah, the back window of the car was smashed in as well, and the car was full of snow. Today it sits on the side of the road, covered by a blue tarp. man that sucks.

Of course, every cloud does have a silver lining. As a result of all the destruction, 300,000+ Buffalonians were left without power (T and I lucked out). Amongst the unfortunate were both Aziza and Sameena, sharing an apartment in near UB's North Campus in Amherst. As their apartment has an uncanny ability to remain 5-10 degrees below the outside temperature, and National Grid estimates full power won't be restored until as late as Wednesday of next week, it was fixing to be a pretty miserable experience for them. Through the incredible generosity of T and I's neighbors, we were able to shovel out her car from the snow 3 times as it got stuck trying to pull out of our driveway, put it back into it's parking space, and take one of their SUV's to go pick Tahera's sisters up. Welcome houseguests!

The cool thing about having Tahera's sisters over is they only feed of one another's silliness. See below for a video of what happens when Dead or Alive start's a-playin.  

As the 3 girls got bored, they also become more bizzare. I began prompting expressions from them as I took pictures: The "motivation" for this picture was me yelling, "What'dchu say to my sister?" Certainly as the power continues to remain off in Sameena and Aziza's apartment, things are bound to only become more and more silly here in ours...