>

But none of those reasons point fingers back to the preparedness scenario now being investigated. 
Like mask fatigue with COVID, how do you get those in Buffalo to take blizzards seriously? How do you get Floridians to take hurricanes seriously? 
Root cause analysis suggests something far more difficult to address: pervasive erosion in confidence and trust in government and science.
Horrible situation all around.
But ... the storm was predicted, so why is/was it so hard for people to just remain where they were? Why go out in a feckin’ blizzard at all? Yes, it sucks being stuck at work or whatever, but it beats dying in your car when the roads are blocked and you can’t see. >

This. People just couldn’t stay off the roads and abandoned their cars, which left the roads blocked so they couldn’t plow the streets and emergency vehicles couldn’t get through. >


“It’s a grueling, gruesome task that they had to do,” Gramaglia said, noting his force has finished following up on some 1,100 backlogged welfare check and 911 calls. “They recovered a substantial amount of bodies, and it’s terrible.”
A Buffalo mom went out on Christmas Eve, telling her daughter she'd be right back. They found her body a few hundred feet from home
“The stories are heartbreaking, just heartbreaking,” Poloncarz said. Among the dead are a senior home worker, a soon-to-be new dad and a grandmother whose body a stranger moved “so that she wouldn’t get snowed on anymore.” >

The officials warned people. It was national news for a week before. "This shit is coming, and coming hard." People had time to prepare, evacuate, stock up. It sucks, it's a tragedy, but you can't slap an "I did that!" sticker on the blizzard. >

The president  warned everyone. When I saw that I knew then it was gonna be bad.
Once  I refused to evacuate  from a hurricane.  I would never ever do that again . Lucky to have survived. Any kind of warning throws me into action now. >

Why would you go out in a blizzard ? It's basically a cold hurricane. They had plenty of warnings.  Be prepared and stay home. >

The state, city, and county’s preparedness is a different story. It was announced on the first day of the blizzard that no emergency services were available and they weren’t restored for days, even after the blizzard had already ended. The city wasn’t dug out for a week, while surrounding suburbs that experienced the same weather and similar obstacles were cleaned up in a matter of days. During this time people were still stuck in their homes with no heat and power. Buffalo has a failing infrastructure and unfortunately it led to mass loss of life. The vast majority is the blizzard’s deaths occurred within the city.