An empty tractor trailer ban is in place for I-86 as well as an overall commercial vehicle ban and a complete travel ban on the portion of I-86 stretching from New York into Pennsylvania to the I-390. In true lake effect fashion, the City of Buffalo and northern Erie County has bone-dry roads and blue skies. South of the city however is a much different story. In Ellicottville, Dash Hegeman, Holiday Valley director of marketing, said as much as 11 inches of snow has fallen in Ellicottville during the past 24 hours. Further south, the New York State Police have closed the Thruway from the Hamburg Exit (Exit 57) to the Pennsylvania line. Elizabeth Carey, Triple A of Western and Central New York, says her agency is getting numerous calls, especially in the Dunkirk and Gowanda areas.
“[We] saw some calls from the Chautauqua County area, Dunkirk. You can look on the NITEC cameras, see the snow picking up there. So we saw an increase in call volume there. Also saw an increase in call volume out [Route] 20A all the way to Harrisburg for heavy snow and some calls there. So they started out slow, and then volume picked up. So we started calling in extra people on the phones and on the roads.”
Carey mentioned how the AAA has called in extra staff to handle the influx of calls
“And for those who are just going to hunker down at home as the snow picks up through the weekend, just remember to give yourself plenty of time Monday morning make sure your vehicle is in good working condition, we expect a lot of calls Monday morning when people find out that their batteries are dead or they run into trouble Monday so.”
The storm will begin to work its way into central Erie County Friday night hitting Orchard Park and Hamburg and continuing into Saturday morning and staying there for the rest of the day and into Sunday.
