#50 - Buffalo Guys & Gals at Work

Well, the storm of 2006 saga continues here at the Cozy Cottage.

Jerry and Little Bear have been on the road for almost two hours now looking for any place that still has some bottled water in stock.

Nothing so far. Jerry headed south about an hour ago and let's keep our fingers crossed.

In the meantime I continue to boil, boil, double, triple boil and then nuke the stuff.

Elderly aunt and in-laws are going to move into a hotel for awhile.
I think our little space is just too little for them so they are opting for the luxury of running water, with no pets and hyper cabin fevered seven year olds to deal with.

My 81 year old mother is on the ground floor of her eight story apartment complex policing the laundry rooms and scolding the "water hogs" who are actually doing laundry during a water ban.

Yep.

That's my mom.

She grew up through a Great Depression, WWII (that ended the life of her only brother), raising a kerjillion kids and more hurdles than anyone can imagine...

and not one complaint out of her.

I think she slipped into Civil Defense mode with the laundry room today.

I keep offering to have us stop by with supplies or whatever she needs and she gets annoyed.

"I can walk, can't I? I'll go to the market myself if I need something."

Sister Peg got her fireplace going with those duralog thingies, they bought a generator in Pennsylvania last night, and I think they found the basement floor.

Other sis still without electric, and doing the boiling water gig too. Tons of downed tree junk on their property and my nephew (who is a volunteer firefighter) is comatose right now after working himself into exhaustion with all of the emergency calls.

Yet the other sis, who is a medical professional, is back on call and darting to the hospital to help out on her day off.
This is why people hang around Buffalo.

Our economy stinks, our weather leaves something to be desired several months out of the year, but we stay put because of family.
And good neighbors.

Last time we had a major chunk of tree falling down weather, Hubby and I lost three giant trees simultaneously on our property.

Our neighbors were over to our house with their chainsaws before we even knew the trees had fallen down.

A few weeks ago, our community looked terrible on the headline news during the Ralph "bucky" Phillips manhunt. (We live about 15 minutes from where the chase was going on). And, of course, there were a bunch of yahoos helping Bucky hideout and griping about the State Troopers tying up traffic and what not.

They're a very small group in this area...

and they got all the press because well, heck I don't know why...

because they were behaving like dingalings.

The national news failed to mention that people were baking and bringing fresh hot meals to the troopers at their main headquarters during that manhunt.

And during this storm, some good neighbors cooked hot chicken and brought it over to our elderly aunt...

after snow ploughing three feet of snow from her front door.

In the city of Buffalo, good neighbors are hiking to the markets to buy groceries for elderly and shut ins, checking to make sure everyone is okay.

And there are relief stations with hot food cooked by volunteers.
One of our major shopping malls is shut down for business and is being used as headquarters for all the electricity guys coming in as far away as from Boston.

They are handing out free supplies to people in the community who are going to be without power for a long stretch of time.
Reports are now saying maybe next weekend.

My husband gets a call this morning to get the trauma counselors out and about. His agency provides such services...

they were there for 9-11, Katrina and Rita.

The problem this time is that the trauma counselors are trapped in the middle of the mess, but other folks step up to bat.

And that's why folks stay put in Buffalo.

When Katrina hit last autumn, the hospital my sister works for emptied out a whole floor to take in Katrina survivors. Our city was ready, set to go immediately with emergency teams and such. There was disappointment all around when FEMA and the powers that be did not accept our city's offers to help.

Same with September 11th, our volunteer firefighters, paramedics and mental health counselors were there promptly.
Buffalonians come across as gruff, probably a bit backwards, blue collared, and not too warm fuzzy.

But, we get the job done.