Happy Sunday evening and – checks calendar – Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. As I suspect many of you reading this – if you’re able to read this – are in Western New York, you are well aware of the weather we’ve been dealing with the past few days. If you’re not in the area, we’ve had an awful blizzard that’s dumped up to 43 inches of snow (at the airport) and has resulted in zero visibility at times. The wind was literally hurricane-strength… but with snow. The bitter cold on top of it all didn’t help.
I am incredibly fortunate that my apartment did not lose power or heat, but I know so many people who have not been as fortunate. As I write this, there have been 12 fatalities confirmed. I’ve been keeping tabs in the Buffalo Blizzard Facebook group, where I’ve seen so many good neighbors helping one another out. Mutual aid is a hell of a thing and I have no doubt it’s kept some people alive through this as the infrastructure couldn’t.
Needless to say, sports have been the last thing on many people’s minds. At the same time, if you were able to listen to or watch Saturday’s Bills game, it provided some necessary distraction. As for the Buffalo Sabres, they’re supposed to play in Columbus on Tuesday night. The airport isn’t scheduled to reopen until 11 AM Tuesday, so we’ll see if that game ends up happening. There are still so many cars & people stuck all over the place, streets not safe or passable.
Anyways: consider this my version of a quick check-in with you all. I hope everyone in the Sabres organization and all of our Die By the Blade readers, as well as everyone else in the Buffalo and Western New York community, is staying safe and warm.
It will undoubtedly still be a few days before we get through the rest of this, though over 13,000 people have had their power restored today & plows and emergency services are certainly doing their best. But we will get through this.
Take care of yourselves, and each other.