Logan Eschrich came to Buffalo to witness the snowstorm, and he stayed for the shoveling on Sunday.
Once the professional storm chaser saw the Buffalo Bills invite fans to help dig out a snow-filled Highmark Stadium for their delayed playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was postponed, Eschrich could not resist.
Sniffling and shivering from the cold, Eschrich detailed the seemingly impossible task he and the estimated 85-person shovel crew faced while being compensated US$20 an hour. Winds whipped at 48kph, and snow was falling at a rate of 5cm per hour at what was supposed to be the game’s 1pm kickoff, before it was moved to 4:40pm yesterday.
Photo: AP
“It would have been absolutely impossible [to play]. We could barely see the next row down from us, and unfortunately, it’s still that way,” Eschrich said by telephone in the middle of the afternoon. “We made progress shoveling, but not much at all.”
He said that bleacher seats were entirely buried by snow, adding that it was treacherous to travel the mere two blocks to the stadium from where he camped overnight.
“I’m very happy they put the travel ban into effect,” said Eschrich, who works for Live Storms Media, and made the 16-hour trip north from Alabama, where he had planned to get video of tornadoes. “Nobody should be out here.”
Former Bills center Eric Wood recalled his first time experiencing a lake-effect storm in Buffalo in November 2014, which has since been dubbed “Snowvember.” The storm dumped nearly 2.1m of snow on Orchard Park over a four-day stretch and led to Buffalo’s home game against the New York Jets being moved to Detroit.
Wood was among seven Bills players in his neighborhood who had to be picked up by snowmobile and transported to the team’s facility before being bused to the airport.
“The whiteout conditions are like nothing I had ever experienced,” said Wood, who is from Cincinnati, Ohio. “Until you experience this snow and understand its effect, it’s hard to appreciate what can truly happen in such a short amount of time, and often without notice.”
Meanwhile, in the games that were played on Sunday, the Green Bay Packers stunned the Dallas Cowboys in a 48-32 wild-card playoff game victory, while the Detroit Lions won their first playoff game in 32 years, pipping the Los Angeles Rams 24-23.
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