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Members of the New York State Legislature met Tuesday to discuss, among other important topics
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disaster relief, funding, heading to Western New York following the historic December blizzard
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Julia Gress reports. Already, $36.5 million in damage and costs have been submitted for federal disaster relief
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with an initial $5 million emergency declaration request from Governor Kathy Hokel already approved
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Jackie Bray, Commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services
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spoke at the legislative budget hearing this week about the issues first responders were plagued with during the Buffalo storm
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This storm was a challenge of access and mobility. And so what I have to do in my job is asking myself, is there anything we could have done to change the dynamic of access and mobility
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Change the fact that for 12 hours, the Buffalo Fire Department couldn't suspend it
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They suspended emergency response. for 12 to 18 hours depending on where you were
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first responders couldn't go out. Bray also hinted at changes that will be coming
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following the high number of deaths seen from the storm. We have an after action that will launch in the next couple of weeks We will make that after action public when it complete I expected to take several months I expect that they will identify areas for improvement One of the things I most interested in looking at is what was the
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communication prior to the storm. And what was not just in the week prior to the storm, but a year
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ago, two years ago, three years ago, how do people, how do we get better at helping people
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understand that the weather of today is actually not it's substantively different than the weather
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of yesterday these storms are more powerful officials in erie county new york announced they are
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working to create an emergency alert system similar to amber alerts to warn residents of incoming
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severe weather a new rating system similar to the system used by hurricanes will also be
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developed to help relay how severe an upcoming storm will be however senator george rorello
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says that the danger of the storm started before the snow or wind even began the uh
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band was too late. People had already left for work and that was really, you know, we knew this was
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going to be a powerful storm. They talked about it for at least a week, if not longer. And I think that
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that certainly hamstrung people's ability to safely get to where to home or back. Ultimately, 20,000
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people were left without power and more than 40 people died in the Christmas blizzard. Julia Gress
