(CNN) — Enough already.
Shivering under up to 6 feet of snow in its hardest-hit sections, Buffalo, New York, may see another 3 feet Thursday.
If the forecast holds, that’s more than a year’s worth of snow in just three days.
In a typical year, Buffalo’s snowfall totals about 7 feet, according to the National Weather Service.
Get the drift?
Piled high and deep, the snow is a nightmare for south Buffalo residents Donna and Sean Yager. It took them four to five hours to free their car from its snowy confines.
Neighbor Rick Gayhart has lived in Buffalo all his life and said he’s never seen a snow like this before.
In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, Chrissy Hazard found herself trapped in her own home, surrounded by 5 1/2 feet of snow.
She has plenty of company. Hazard’s there with her husband, a friend, seven children and some dogs.
It’s close quarters when there’s nowhere to go.
Everything’s all right for now, she told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
“We’re good,” she said. “We’re buried in the house but we’re doing OK.”
Deadly storm
Seven deaths in the region — including one man whose car was buried under more than a foot of snow — are blamed on the extreme storm, authorities said.
Erie County officials said one of the deaths was from a car accident and three other people died due to cardiac issues that resulted from shoveling snow.
In Alden, New York, a 46-year-old man was found dead inside a car buried in 12 to 15 feet of snow, authorities said.
In Genesee County, Jack Boyce, a 56-year-old county employee, died after collapsing Tuesday morning while operating a snow blower outside the county sheriff’s office, according to county manager Jay Gsell.
On Wednesday, Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein said an elderly man with a known heart condition had died.
“He had an exacerbation of his condition where he needed emergency medical care and he was unable to be transported to a care facility that had the highest level of care,” she said, adding that the patient died at an “urgent care center.”
Good neighbors
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and city officials Wednesday recounted stories of rescuers trudging around snow drifts as high as houses to get people to hospitals, of fire stations turned into temporary shelters and police officers delivering special baby formula to a pair of infants.
“It is clear that we are one Buffalo,” Brown said.
Buffalo prides itself as “The City of Good Neighbors.”
“Buffalo itself, known as a city of neighbors, has come together and shown a real sense of community and neighbor helping neighbor, which is always good to see,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters.
A sporting chance
Wednesday night’s football game between the University of Buffalo and Kent State was postponed because the visitor’s equipment truck didn’t make it in time. The game could be played Thursday or on another date, school officials said.
The NFL is keeping a close eye on the weather too. The Buffalo Bills are scheduled to play the New York Jets on Sunday.
The storms will be long gone by then, but Ralph Wilson Stadium is a mess, buried in an estimated 220,000 tons of snow.
“We have not had this much snow as far as we know in the history of our team,” said Andy Major, a Bills vice president. “It might take three days or so to remove one foot of snow before a game and now we’ve got four feet of snow on a 200 acre site where there’s potential for more coming. So right there it gives you the magnitude.”
To help with the task, the team is offering $10 an hour to clear snow. Game tickets are also part of the deal.
Snow removal crews will get some help from the forecast.
Temperatures are expected to break through freezing on Saturday and reach the 50s on Sunday, the National Weather Service said. But rain is also likely.
“That would be a terrible thing,” CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers said. “If it rains — and it probably will at least on the weekend — all of that snow is not going to melt right away. That snow is going to hold that rain in and then that snow on top is going to get heavier and heavier.”
And that could stress buildings already buried under feet of snow.
Clearing the streets
Still, traveling remains difficult in many parts of Buffalo.
Brown predicted a “long way to go” before efforts to clear the city’s roadways are finished. Already, more than 6,500 tons of snow have been removed from city streets and highways.
“It is going to be a slow go,” the mayor said. “Historic amounts of snow have fallen. There is no place to put that snow.”
Instead of plowing the snow, front-end loaders are scooping it up and piling it into the back of dump trucks to be hauled away.
Contractors and city crews are working 24/7 to clear the 10 square miles that have been pummeled by lake-effect snow, caused by Arctic air pouring over the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes.
Trapped at the fire station
The snow left people stranded in cars and turned roadways into parking lots. But it also forced residents to seek shelter in unusual places.
About 70 people took refuge at a Buffalo fire station and 20 others holed up in a police station Tuesday night, authorities said. By morning, most had returned home.
And as they waited, those at the fire station got a teeny weeny gift.
A baby girl was delivered there when an ambulance was unable to take her mother to the hospital, Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield said.
“She was born, she’s safe and she’s healthy,” Whitfield said.
