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Dig out of Buffalo continues

Heavy equipment is being used to scoop and remove snow from clogged streets where up to 4 feet of snow fell in the most recent lake effect storm.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — "All week long I've been doing 12 to 13 hour shifts starting Sunday until today," Dan Keoppel said as he sat in his front end loader on Casmir Street, waiting for another dump truck to arrive to be filled with snow.

The Kaisertown neighborhood where Keoppel was working was one of the hardest hit areas of the city during the most recent lake effect snowstorm, where four feet of snow was deposited here in just a few days. 

It is here as well that the streets became narrowed to the point where plows couldn't get down them and so, in what has become the standard way of dealing with such situations, the city hired contractors with front end loaders who come in to scoop the snow and load it into dump trucks to remove it entirely.

"I'm used to 12-hour shifts. You get your sleep and then get up and do it again," said Keoppel, who was operating a high lift owned by Vallanis Construction, one of the many contractors hired by the city.

"I've got more than 32 hours in right now," said Dan Beck of Beck and Sons Dump Truck Service in North Tonawanda, who is also under contract with the city.

"It takes its toll for sure, but it's just something that you have to do and then you just do it. It's all just adrenaline," said Beck, who stepped outside of his cab to speak with 2 On Your Side while Keoppel filled his truck with another load of snow.

"This is fantastic," said Walter Thompson, a driver for ZoomRide, which provides transportation to medical appointments for patients across the city.

Thompson said the streets were so bad in some parts of the city that the service was interrupted.

"This really opens up the road ... especially with medical situations and stuff. This is really the way to go here," Thompson said as he patiently waited for Keoppel to fill Beck's truck so that he could move on to his next appointment.

When asked what was the biggest challenge for equipment operators such as himself, Keoppel replied, "cars in the way and people not coming out to move them when they see us there."

Added Beck, "Cars, especially little ones, thinking they can go anywhere and everywhere … and just people walking right in back of you or in front of you and thinking that you can just stop on a dime."

Indeed, with snow piled up so high, the visibility of equipment operators is not only reduced, but the ability of anyone around them to jump out of the way of one of the vehicles may be almost impossible. 

That was the case in one instance following a snowstorm that struck the city last year, and which ended with tragic results when a city worker was killed by a high lift backing up during a snow removal operation, and the victim was unable to side step it. 

A couple of years ago the city stopped towing snowbound cars to the auto pound and fining people. These days, crews move any vehicles they encounter out way, clear the street, and in most cases just put them back where they found them at no charge to residents. 

The city has done this for more than 100 cars in Kaisertown since Thursday night.

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