BUFFALO, N.Y. — "Ice is not cool," Joe Guarino, Airfield Superintendent at the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport said ahead of forecasted freezing rain for Western New York. "It could be an issue for us. I'd rather have snow, quite frankly, than freezing rain and ice."
Nonetheless, Guarino says his crews are prepared for whatever hits them.
"We're prepared," he said. "We have the trucks ready to go and we're fully stocked, so we'll have plenty of inventory on hand for the duration this goes for."
That means 40,000 gallons of potassium acetate, which works as both a runway anti-icer and de-icer. It's sprayed from booms on two tanker trucks. With this system, airport crews can break down ice and snow build-up, and clear the main runway in one pass.
Once the snow moves in, crews will bring out the heavy duty multi-task equipment, or MTE's for short.
"We have five of them that are a combination plow, broom, and high-speed airblast," Guarino said. "So going down the runway as they pass, the runway is basically bare. It can almost do a full width of each runway and our taxiways. They do a great job. We can do the work of ten pieces of equipment with five of these."
All five have been inspected by mechanics and fueled up since November's lake effect storm, which temporarily shut down the airport.
"The best bet is to check with your airlines, but we anticipate staying open ovbiously throughout every event, and I have a great crew out there that will maintain the airport for folks to get where they need to go," Guarino said.
That includes getting the Miami Dolphins to Buffalo safely for Saturday night's Bills game at Highmark Stadium.
"We maintain the airport for everybody," Guarino said. "So you could have a Cheroke single-engine aircraft coming in here with one passenger. Or we have the Bills, the Miami dolphins coming in here. We maintain it in the same fashion, so we're doing it for everybody."
Guarino says a testament to that is the hard work it took to get the Bills to Detroit for their game against the Cleveland Browns during the November event.
"We had that cargo area, we had three feet of snow there and we cleared that up and we were ready to go. So they got out of there no issues, and I don't see any issues with Miami getting in here and Buffalo squishing the fish," he said.
You can check your flight status through the Buffalo Airport website.