Get by with a little help from friends
With snow falling, the Bills call on fans to dig out the stadium
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Logan Eschrich came to Buffalo to witness the snowstorm, and he stayed for the shoveling on Sunday.
Once the professional storm chaser saw the Bills invite fans to help dig out a snowfilled Highmark Stadium for their delayed playoff game against the Steelers, now scheduled for Monday, Eschrich couldn’t 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 $20 an hour. Winds whipped at 30 mph (48 kph), and snow was falling at a rate of 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour at what was supposed to be the game’s 1 p.m. EST kickoff, which has been pushed back to Monday at 4:30 p.m.
“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 told The Associated Press by phone in the mid-afternoon. “We made progress shoveling, but not much at all.”
He said 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.”
The Buffalo region, which includes the Bills’ home in Orchard Park, was mostly at a standstill, with a travel ban in place due to a dangerous lake-effect storm that began on Saturday and was expected to last through Sunday night.
The storm was projected to dump up between 1 and 3 feet of snow, with the heaviest accumulation around Orchard Park.
With the storm’s brunt expected to wane by Sunday night, the National Weather Service’s forecast for Monday called for a chance of snow showers in the morning and a high of 19 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-7 Celsius), but with strong wind making it feel like minus-5 (minus-21).
On Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she expected the game to kick off as scheduled, with the end of the storm allowing time for roads and the stadium to be cleared of snow. A day earlier, Hochul and the NFL cited public safety concerns as the reason to push the game back to Monday.
Bills players and staff spent Sunday at home.
The Steelers arrived Sunday afternoon with travel restrictions having been lifted at Buffalo Niagara International Airport and northern parts of Erie County.