BUFFALO, N.Y. — City officials say damage from the weekend windstorm was fairly uniform throughout Buffalo, with perhaps slightly more damage in northern sections of the city than in other parts.
In a way, however, they say residents of the Queen City should be thanking their lucky stars.
“I think we were pretty fortunate with the winds that we received that there wasn't more extensive damage,” Mayor Byron Brown said at a post-storm news conference Monday at a time when 6,200 homes within the city limits remained without power.
According to Mayor Brown, the city’s emergency operations center took 300 calls for service during the approximately 24 hours that the storm raged.
“This included 75 calls for wires down and 12 structures that were hit by trees. 3-1-1 operators took another 325 (non-emergency) calls for service, including 104 calls for tree limbs blocking streets in different parts of the city," Brown said.
Citywide, 50 trees were considered damaged so severely that they had to be removed.
"That we had this type of storm and we only had 50 major tree calls to report, I look at that as a pretty good thing," said Andy Rabb, the city’s Deputy Parks Commissioner.
Even after the storm's fury subsided on Monday, city parks remained closed as crews assessed tree damage to make sure no more branches were about to fall, and to begin cleaning up the ones that had.
Meanwhile, the Bird Island Pier will remain closed for an extended period of time, as sections of safety railing between the posts atop the pier succumbed to damage by flowing chunks of ice.
“This has occurred before, and our crews will be able to repair that railing system as long as it’s not extremely extensive," said Michael Finn, acting Commissioner of Public Works, Parks and Streets.
Finn also revealed that the roof at Sahlen Field downtown also sustained damage in the storm.
According to Finn, city crews working with the Buffalo Bisons baseball club discovered the damage to the roof of the stadium and some air handling units Monday morning.
“Crews are working to secure the damage and to assess what repairs are necessary,” Finn said.
Roughly two dozen homes were damaged enough to get city inspectors involved, according to Mayor Brown, who added that the bulk of property damage within the city involved park cars getting hit by tree limbs.
Brown reported that several people were injured during the storm, although none were hurt seriously.