Early Snow Blankets Buffalo

Falls of Up to 2 Feet Catch Western New York Unprepared

BUFFALO, Oct. 13 -- Buffalo lay all but paralyzed Friday after a record-breaking early snowstorm whited out the brilliant colors of fall, covered pumpkins and apples, and caught this city world-famous for its wintry weather flat-footed. At least three deaths were blamed on the storm.

The heavy, wet snow snapped tree limbs all over western New York, leaving about 380,000 homes and businesses without power.

A state of emergency was in effect across the region, banning nonessential travel. Branches and power lines lay draped across cars and houses, and normally busy downtown streets were silent, blanketed by up to two feet of snow.

"I thought it was kind of pretty but eerie," said Ann Goff, who walked to her job at a Buffalo supermarket in the middle of the night. "It was scary listening to the cracking of the branches."

The snow, delivered in a fury of thunder and lightning, blanketed Buffalo and surrounding areas Thursday night and early Friday. A 105-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway was closed for hours, and food and water were delivered by snowmobile to stranded motorists.

Many municipal trucks were working to remove leaves on Thursday and did not have plows attached when the surprise storm hit, dropping 8.6 inches of snow. It was the snowiest October day in Buffalo in the 136-year history of the National Weather Service, but the record lasted only a day -- at least a foot of snow fell Friday. The old record was six inches, set on Oct. 31, 1917.

One of the dead was a teenager struck by a car while walking in Niagara County. Another person was killed in a two-car accident in Lancaster, and a third person died after being hit by a falling tree limb while shoveling snow in Amherst, officials said.

The snow began melting as bright sunshine emerged and temperatures warmed into the 40s. But the wind continued to howl, raising fears more trees would topple.

The storm buried pumpkins and covered apple trees just before a busy picking weekend but the quickly melting snow is not expected to damage the fruit, New York Farm Bureau spokesman Peter Gregg said.

In some of Buffalo's Victorian-era neighborhoods, oaks, maples and magnolias, some of which have stood for a century, were bowed or broken.