The Day

With snow still falling, the Bills call on fans to help dig out the stadium

- By JOHN WAWROW AP Sports Writer

— Logan Eschrich Buffalo, N.Y. 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, 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 per hour at what was supposed to be the game's 1 p.m. kickoff, which has been pushed back to today 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).

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.

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 7 feet (2.1 meters) 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's from Cincinnati. "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."

 ?? JEFFREY T. BARNES/AP PHOTO ?? Workers remove snow on Sunday from Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.
JEFFREY T. BARNES/AP PHOTO Workers remove snow on Sunday from Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.

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