CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — Friday night five MTEs, or multi-task equipment machines, are getting rid of all the snow dumped at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
“They’re a combination of plow, broom and high-speed air blast. So they can do the work of two pieces of equipment. So I can do it with five staff members, operators, versus having ten out there," said Joe Guarino, Buffalo Niagara International Airport airfield superintendent.
Guarino says it only takes one ride down the runway for the multi-task equipment machines to clear it. At one tarmac, they got rid of more than a foot of snow in under an hour.
It’s where the Buffalo Bills will be getting on their flight for Detroit on Saturday. After that, it was the first real break crews got.
All of them are on a rotating shift, working for 16 hours and off for eight.
Guarino says it will be a long ways to go with more snow projected.
"Since I’ve been here, this is one of the biggest forecasted events. It hasn’t come to fruition yet. We did have a briefing this morning with all our stakeholders and national weather. They informed us we could get up to 33 inches by the end of the storm on Sunday,” Guarino said.
Once the snow is picked up, it goes into a machine that has two furnaces to melt it all.
Guarino says it should take a couple days to get rid of all of it. For any ice, they have 40,000 gallons of liquid potassium acetate.
As of Friday night, they used 4,000 gallons.
The biggest challenge overnight will be visibility.
"That’s the toughest part. Blinding snow and winds, you can barely see the hand in front of your face. That’s where it gets a little dicey. But that’s why we’re in constant communication with each other, with air traffic control tower, so it’s constant communication and that’s what keeps us safe," Guarino said.
Not every flight was canceled Friday as the airfield was cleared of snow.
Some flights did takeoff and land in Buffalo earlier in the afternoon, so if you’re traveling Friday night or Saturday, Guarino says the best thing to do is check with your airline.