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notlikeyourex t1_j1h54q8 wrote

Reply to comment by diabeetus-girl in Factbox: About 1.2 million without power in United States from winter storms by Smithy2232

That's insane. We had some -12/-15C days with 30cm snowfall in mid-November here in Stockholm but not that much chaos, just some disruptions to public transportation and needed a day or two for the snow plowers to clear most major streets.

What's the issue in upstate NY that similar conditions create this much chaos? AFAIK it's quite common to have snowfall there, no?

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rachnar t1_j1h6eol wrote

Their temps got closer to -30 and even lower. And shitty infrastructure not made for it combined with people not used to it that don't know what the cold does.

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irabonus t1_j1hlm7y wrote

It's very rural and if you can't drive you're stuck. Walking to the closest building or sometimes even a neighbor can be impossible in inclement weather.

Power lines in much of the US are aboveground (as in, not just long-distance transmission lines but the ones going to each house) and snow causes tree limbs to fall and lines to come down.

Each outage might only affect a few people, but where I live there were over 1000 individual incidents within one day last week, so it can take days to repair all of them.

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Aleriya t1_j1hsewi wrote

Part of the difference is labor laws. There are people driving 30km to commute to work with no public transit alternative. Even if it's unsafe to drive, they will make an attempt because they are required to be at work, and they can't wait for the snow plows to come through.

One time I commuted into work when there was 30cm snow, and we got another 30cm during my shift. Most of the employees weren't able to get home, so we slept that night in the store.

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FindingMoi t1_j1hof7y wrote

I think other posters have explained it fairly well but I think a point you’re missing is that Buffalo got 5 ft, or over 150 cm, vs in what you describe, 30 cm. That’s not similar conditions at all.

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NoNameComputers t1_j1hveix wrote

Most places in Western NY operate just fine with extreme cold and 30 cm of snow. Buffalo is potentially looking at closer to 200 cm of snow from this storm. Combine that with the fact that it was heavily redlined and therefore infrastructure was heavily under-invested, and you end up with a real disaster.

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