Buffalo braces for 'toxic brew' of flooding as 7 feet of snow start to melt
What's worse than 7 feet of snow piled up in front of your house? How about the flooding that comes once those 7 feet of snow melt?
That's exactly what some Buffalonians will grapple with when temperatures Monday warm up to around 60 degrees, CNN reported.
Swift-water rescue teams and helicopters are already on standby in western New York in case anyone gets caught in a deluge.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said residents shouldn't wait until the last minute to evacuate if they think their homes will get inundated. He advised such homeowners to clear their basements of valuables.
The governor said dealing with flooding is worse than the snow.
"It's not water," Cuomo said. "It's a toxic brew. It has sewage in it; it has runoff in it."
State officials have beefed up stockpiles of generators and pumps and prepared almost 180,000 sandbags.
After last week's nationwide bout with frigid weather, Buffalo temperatures could reach as 60 on Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Freezing temperatures are not expected again until Tuesday night.
"At least 3 feet of snow has melted so far," Dawn Buck of Depew, New York, told CNN's iReport on Sunday afternoon.
But Erie County spokesman Benjamin Swanekamp said so far, the snow has been melting at a "relatively even pace."
"The pace of the melting and the lack of additional rain has kept it manageable," Swanekamp said late Sunday night.
About 700,000 people are under a flood warning until Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri said.
Officials have been moving pumps into neighborhoods and sandbags near creeks. So far, the county hasn't received reports of major flooding.