Have family and friends still in the area. One friend was amazed (and angry) at the amount of traffic even after the travel ban was in place. Quite a few people simply did not take the warnings of impending weather seriously. Then around 10:00 Am Friday it hit where they lived and just white. In Genesee County, dozens of cars stranded or off the road and that’s one rural county. With a travel ban in place one wonders if auto insurance will cover in full damages to vehicles.
I don’t think it was people freezing to death in their homes as much as medical emergencies and EMS could not reach those people. It sounds like a majority of the deaths were people trapped in vehicles.
Was looking at a National Grid outage map at https://outagemap.ny.nationalgridus.com/ a few days ago and was surprised at the outages, especially in areas like eastern Orleans County. I think the ash trees starting to die off in large numbers from Emerald Ash Borer are going to cause more and more problems for power lines. When I was back in the area earlier this year, the amount of crown die-off from EAB was very noticeable in some areas. A good wind storm is going to take these weakened trees down.
This is what it looks like when the people lose faith in the institutions that are supposed to make civilization function. The weather has been politicized to the point that every normal occurrence has become the fault of people who have a disagreement with the democrats on tax policy. People no longer trust the “leaders” that went on TV to tell them that they MUST get the jab or else they will be branded mass murderers. When every weather event, from a hot spell to a rain storm to a dry spell is a cataclysmic catastrophe, then none are a cataclysmic catastrophe.