A monster lake-effect snowstorm that pummeled areas from South Buffalo to Alden with up to 6 feet of snow in 24 hours is responsible for at least five deaths, authorities reported. 
 
 Three of them succumbed, apparently from heart problems, two of them while shoveling the deep snow. Another was killed while attempting to push a car out of a drift. The fifth storm fatality, announced by county officials this morning, was a 46-year-old man discovered in his vehicle buried in snow in Alden. 
 
 There is no name for the great wall of lake-effect snow that unleashed historic amounts of snow through the midsection of Erie County and to the south Tuesday while the sun shone brightly on the northern half. 
 
 Lancaster, South Cheektowaga, Elma, Alden and West Seneca took the brunt of the attack, along with areas like Hamburg, Orchard Park and East Aurora and towns and villages further south. 
 
 While 60 inches of snow was reported at a site a mile southeast of Lancaster, forecasters noted that just six miles northwest from that spot, only 3.9 inches fell at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. 
 
 Dave Zaff of the National Weather Service in Buffalo said there’s no meteorological term for the phenomenon that created that strikingly pronounced wall of clouds and churned out the unbelievable amount of snow. 
 
 “Whiteout to blue sky in a very, very short distance,” he said. 
 
 It’s not unheard of when it comes to lake-effect storms. But the snow totals? They may be for the history books. 
 
 “This will be a historic event,” Zaff said. “Absolutely. It is a historic event.” 
 
 Some are calling it “Snowvember.” 
 
 Between 120 and 150 vehicles were stranded on the Thruway most of Tuesday. 
 
 Schools closed on Tuesday in the hard-hit areas and Buffalo Public Schools announced Tuesday evening that they would close again today. 
 
 The historic lake-effect snowstorm was brutal enough to hit the early segment of the national network news and garnered a pair of Weather Channel meteorologists. Stephanie Abrams and Mike Bettes both reported the storm from Hamburg. 
 
 The weather also captured the attention of cyberspace. “Western New York” was listed as a “trending” item on Facebook late Tuesday. 
 
 Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo directed 150 National Guardsmen to help South Buffalo and the Southtowns dig out and Poloncarz declared a state of emergency. 
 
 Mercy Hospital was working with a shoestring staff. “Many of our nurses couldn’t get into work today,” said Shanel Orsi, a nurse who ended up getting a ride to work from a snowmobiler. “They wanted to, but they couldn’t get in.” 
 
 Half the flights in and out of Buffalo’s airport were canceled. 
 
 The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority canceled several Metro Bus lines to heavily hit areas Tuesday and Amtrak canceled passenger from Albany to Cleveland. 
 
 Officials were concerned about weather-related injuries. 
 
 Clearing cars and driveways, even by snowblower, can tax the cardiac system. Hypothermia can set in quickly, especially in Tuesday’s extreme conditions that saw wind chills below zero in many parts of the region. Walking through hip-deep snow drifts is also dangerous. 
 
 “If you’re trying to wade through 4 feet of snow, I don’t care if you’re a triathlete, there an extreme risk,” Zaff said. 
 
 Authorities also were cautioning homeowners – especially those with high-efficiency furnaces – to keep their outside air vents free of snow to prevent a house from filling up with poisonous carbon monoxide. 
 
 As many as seven people may have lost a finger clearing out snowblowers. 
 
 Other stories abounded from the path of the storm. 
 
 Firefighters in South Buffalo struggled to get to their calls and were taking care of a pregnant woman at a fire hall late Monday. 
 
 Emergency responders in Orchard Park were finding cars abandoned in snow drifts, and firefighters in Lancaster and South Buffalo were having difficulty getting their rigs to calls. 
 
 In Buffalo, Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield said crews carried gurneys down snow-covered streets because ambulances were unable to get through, and utilized snowmobiles on rescue calls. 
 
 “They’ve done that a number of times,” Whitfield said. “That’s common practice right now.” 
 
 Lancaster was among the towns to take the brunt of the relentless storm that stubbornly planted itself over the region. 
 
 Plows could barely get in and out of the highway barns because of stranded cars. Paramedics ditched their ambulances in snowbanks in favor of snowmobiles to get to emergencies. 
 
 “It’s like Beirut here,” said Jeffrey Bono, disaster coordinator for the Lancaster Volunteer Fire Corps. “I kid you not. It’s horrible.” 
 
 But in Amherst, the skies were blue and the town’s streets crews was busy picking up fall leaves. And in Buffalo neighborhoods north of downtown, parents scratched their heads as their children cheered a snow day with less than 2 inches on the ground. 
 
 The weather service had issued a watch Saturday afternoon for the storm with dire predictions of snow of up to 2 feet. If only they had been right. 
 
 The radar made it increasingly clear that a monster storm was headed for Buffalo. 
 
 But where would it hit? 
 
 The Southtowns saw its share, with totals in the 3- to 4-foot range, but the most unyielding of the snow fell from South Buffalo across to Alden. 
 
 Snow fell at a rate of 3 to 5 inches an hour, rendering snowblowers useless and plows immobile. 
 
 “For a 24-hour event, it’s big,” Zaff said. 
 
 When the final tabulations are counted this afternoon, many of those areas – especially towns further to the south – will be adding even more depth to those totals. 
 
 On the plus side, temperatures were moderate by winter storm standards, ranging from the high teens to the mid-20s. 
 
 The nearly stationary band of snow remained in place all day and into Tuesday evening, relentlessly blitzing areas along the Lake Erie shoreline and across most of Erie County south of the Thruway, according to radar images. 
 
 The storm shifted further into southern Erie County during the evening hours, losing some of its steam but still dropping additional accumulation in the Boston Hills area and into Wyoming County. 
 
 The lake-effect storm was expected to creep back up north this morning, but showing a more merciful side. Expected new totals will likely be counted in inches instead of with yard sticks. 
 
 Southtowners won’t get much of a window to dig out from Tuesday’s snowfall, which cut visibility to near zero for hours on end as heavy snow quickly piled up on roadways, in parking lots and driveways far faster than they could be plowed. 
 
 Route 5 – the main artery along the lake shore between Dunkirk and Buffalo – was impassable in most areas Tuesday. 
 
 Numerous cars were abandoned in ditches between Angola and Lakeview, and some of them became unrecognizable as they were buried beneath the deep snow and drifts. 
 
 Despite the travel ban, some ventured out, hoping to traverse the road in spite of the hazardous elements. 
 
 Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement turned away any motorists along Route 5 at Lakeview Road headed toward the city. 
 
 At that stretch of Route 5, the snow had accumulated at least a foot or more in the roadway. And, because of the heavy snowfall, there was little way to differentiate one side of the road from the other or to see any landmarks or street signs along the way. 
 
 Plows are useless when the snow is more than 2 or 3 feet deep, authorities said. 
 
 “You need heavy equipment,” said meteorologist Jon Hitchcock. 
 
 All 35 pieces of the City of Buffalo’s heavy equipment was dispatched to South Buffalo to help clear streets. 
 
 “This is a very, very intense storm – one of those record storms we’re going to remember beyond this date,” said Steven Stepniak, Buffalo’s public works commissioner, during a late-afternoon news conference. “It’s no longer a pushing event. It’s now a hauling event.” 
 
 A second lake-effect storm – driven by the same factors as the first: frigid air and a gusty west wind with just the right trajectory – is expected to pelt many of the same areas as were hit on Tuesday. 
 
 Tweeted Poloncarz late Tuesday: “Some parts of our county are going to receive a year’s worth of snowfall in three days.” 
 
 email: mbecker@buffnews.com and tpignataro@buffnews.com ||||| The Niagara University women’s basketball team has been stranded more than 24 hours in snow on I-90 near Buffalo. A blizzard buried the highway early Tuesday, stopping traffic in both directions. (Courtesy of Niagara Women’s Basketball) 
 
 The Niagara University women’s basketball team lost its second game of the season Monday night against the University of Pittsburgh. Although the team took an early lead, it was trounced by the Pittsburgh Panthers, 70-54. 
 
 When the game ended, it was late. And the Purple Eagles were exhausted. 
 
 “It was an exciting game, but didn’t turn out as we wanted it to,” Emily Granruth, a 19-year-old guard, told The Washington Post in a telephone interview late Tuesday night. So they climbed into a charter bus headed home to Lewiston, N.Y., just outside Niagara Falls. Many fell asleep. 
 
 “When we woke up, we realized it was snowing. Then we were stuck,” Granruth said in an interview from the bus. “It was a little scary. We didn’t know what was going on.” 
 
 A New York blizzard buried Interstate 90 near Buffalo, N.Y., stopping traffic in both directions. The Purple Eagles became stranded along with some 140 other vehicles, authorities said. Police made the rounds on snowmobiles to keep drivers informed. 
 
 The teammates exhausted their food and water supply, forced to pack team water bottles with fresh snow. When asked about the bathroom situation, Granruth said, “So far, so good,” but didn’t elaborate. 
 
 Early Wednesday morning, the team tweeted, “On our way back to campus now!” But it was a long trip for these athletes who were just trying to beat the storm. 
 
 The snow was blowing down so hard into Tuesday morning, the teammates couldn’t see outside. The roads hadn’t been plowed. And, about 2 a.m., the bus was stopped with 24 people on board. Head coach Kendra Faustin told CNN, “I’m assuming that somebody in the front of the line got stuck and everybody else had to stop, and that’s how we got where we are.” 
 
 As The Post’s Cindy Boren reported, the teammates passed the time talking to each other and checking in with their families back home. They used social media to keep loved ones updated. 
 
 Sleepover with the team on a bus in a blizzard!!! #StrandedInTheSnow — Emily Granruth (@emilygranruth) November 18, 2014 
 
 You know it’s bad when you close your eyes and you think the bus is moving #NUWBBstrandedonbus — Focused. (@sylvoslice24) November 18, 2014 
 
 Granruth said the bus driver told them the vehicle had about 200 hours of idle time, so they were able to keep the motor running to keep the lights on and the heater blowing. 
 
 “We’re doing fine,” Renee Polka, the team’s director of operations, told WIVB-TV on Tuesday. “The bus hasn’t stopped running since we left Pittsburgh. So that’s definitely a positive. So we’re probably luckier than others on the road right now.” 
 
 As the hours passed, Granruth said one of her teammates, Tiffany Corselli, started a team prayer “as a way to keep our spirits up.” In one photo posted to social media, the players were huddled inside the bus, holding hands and bowing their heads. 
 
 “At the top of every hour, I’ve been praying for our strength,” Corselli, a 19-year-old guard, told The Post on Tuesday night. “I just felt that it was something that we needed and it really brought our team together. I think everybody is hungry, restless, tired. … I know we’re in a bad state but there are people worse off then us.” 
 
 Tuesday was the coldest November morning since 1976. Across the country, temperatures fell below freezing in at least one city in all 50 states. The lake-effect storm, which some have dubbed “thunder snow,” smothered Buffalo in more than six feet of snow in some areas, leaving people stranded in their vehicles along roadways. 
 
 First responders were using snowmobiles from volunteers to respond to calls. At least four people have died — one in a vehicle accident, three others from cardiac arrest while shoveling snow, CNN reported. 
 
 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) deployed the National Guard to Western New York to help those affected by the snowstorm. 
 
 Granruth said about five minutes before she spoke with The Post on Tuesday night, the team ran out of food. Police on snowmobiles came by and dropped off protein bars and packaged cookies. They filled their bottles with snow. 
 
 “We’re all a little worried, a little scared, but we’re sticking together and trying to help each other out,” she said at the time. “We’re really thinking about everyone else who’s stuck in the storm. We all hope it’s resolved quickly.” 
 
 A few hours later, the teammates posted a photo on Twitter showing their trip home. 
 
 On our way back to campus now! pic.twitter.com/urg4bYAhiD — NiagaraWBB (@NiagaraWBB) November 19, 2014 
 
 Assistant coach Corinne Jones told WGRZ-TV it’s an experience they will never forget. 
 
 “You couldn’t set up a team bonding experience like this, I don’t think,” Jones said. “And we as coaches always talk about mental toughness and this is really a true test of how tough are we. I don’t hear a lot of complaining.” 
 
 
 
 The Niagara University women’s basketball team in better times. (Courtesy of Niagara Woman’s Basketball) 
 
 This post has been updated. 
 
 Related: 
 
 Buffalo, N.Y., area in the midst of a truly insane lake-effect snowstorm 
 
 1 of 68 Full Screen Autoplay Close Nov. 18, 2014 Tuesday Nov. 17, 2014 Monday Nov. 16, 2014 Nov. 14, 2014 Nov. 13, 2014 Nov. 12, 2014 Wednesday Nov. 11, 2014 Tuesday Nov. 10, 2014 Monday Skip Ad × Arctic blast hits the U.S. View Photos Colder than normal temperatures are chilling much of the country. Caption Colder than normal temperatures are chilling much of the country. Nov. 19, 2014 New York Air National Guard members from the 107th Airlift Wing in Niagara Falls remove snow from the roof of the Eden Heights Assisted Living Facility in West Seneca, N.Y., outside of Buffalo. Maj. Mark Frank/U.S. National Guard via European Pressphoto Agency Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. ||||| Stranded on the highway for more than a day, the Niagara women's basketball team is finally making its journey home. 
 
 In this photo provided by Niagara's Tiffany Corselli, teammates Gabby Baldasare and Jamie Sherburne huddle under a blanket while stuck on a bus near Buffalo, N.Y., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014. The NCAA college... (Associated Press) 
 
 This photo provided by Chelsea Andorka, the Niagara University women’s basketball team spokeswoman, shows the team holding a sign while their bus was snowbound on the New York State Thruway in the middle... (Associated Press) 
 
 The team was stuck on its bus for nearly 30 hours because of a huge storm that dumped 4 feet of snow around Buffalo and was blamed for at least six deaths. 
 
 Niagara was coming back late Monday night from a loss at Pittsburgh when the squad was marooned on the New York State Thruway. Early on Wednesday morning, players at last tweeted photos of a plow starting to clear the road. 
 
 A few hours later, state troopers picked them up and brought them to a nearby police station where another bus was waiting to take them back to campus, Niagara guard Tiffany Corselli said. 
 
 "It started to get bad fast at about 2 a.m. (Tuesday morning) and we came to a dead stop and haven't moved since," Niagara coach Kendra Faustin told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday night. "It was a rough weekend for us on the court and it just won't end." 
 
 The coach, who took over at Niagara in 2007, said everyone was OK and the team was in good spirits. Players had been running low on food, but local officials dropped off snacks and drinks. There were 25 players and coaches aboard the bus as well as Faustin's 1-year-old son. 
 
 "We have snacks, some granola bars and pretzels," Faustin said. "We found six bottles of water and have been rationing it. We thought we'd be here for a couple hours and a couple of hours turned into 12 hours. It's now 24 hours." 
 
 Before the supplies arrived, the team actually turned some of the snow into water. Faustin described snow drifts higher than 6 feet that covered cars. Other motorists came aboard the bus seeking shelter and bonded with the team. 
 
 In a region accustomed to highway-choking snowstorms, this one has been called one of the worst in memory. Snow blown by strong winds forced the closing of a 132-mile stretch of the Thruway, the main highway that runs across New York State. 
 
 "You couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us, but it's starting to get better," Faustin said. "You can see some lights in the distance of some houses off the side of the road." 
 
 Players used social media to inform others of their plight, posting selfies from the bus. 
 
 "This whole Twitter and media thing has kept their spirits high," Faustin said. "It's something fun for them to do." 
 
 Players also watched movies and caught the Duke-Michigan State men's basketball game on television Tuesday night. 
 
 "They really have been great. There's been no complaining at all. They've been joking around: I want a steak, I want a soft taco, a Slurpee," she said. "There's definitely nothing in the coaching handbook to prepare you for this. I'm sure when it's all done we'll look back at it and remember how great a bonding experience it was. For now, I think everyone just wants to get home and sleep in their own beds." 
 
 Niagara wasn't the only team affected by the storm. Buffalo Sabres forward Patrick Kaleta was snowed in and unable to leave his home. Sabres assistant general manager Mark Jakubowski and head athletic trainer Tim Macre were also snowed in and unable to attend Tuesday night's 4-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks. 
 
 The storm also forced the postponement of the Canisius College women's basketball home game against Binghamton on Wednesday night. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg ||||| At one point during her 13-hour ordeal, Karen Rossi got out a pen and paper and wrote farewell letters to her two daughters. 
 
 Her car became stuck in a snowbank at Transit Road and William Street in Lancaster, not far from home. A passing plow pushed her farther into the snowbank, and then the intense lake-effect storm completely buried the blue Chevy Cobalt. 
 
 Rossi couldn’t tell if it was day or night from inside the car. 
 
 “It felt like I was underground, buried in a casket,” she said. “It was surreal. It was just silent for hours. Nobody came. And my phone had died. I couldn’t charge it because I’d taken my daughter’s car to work.” 
 
 Rossi’s daughter had just cleaned the car, removing blankets, clothing and other items that might have come in handy. 
 
 As the hours went by, she became wet from trying to dig her way to daylight and her car was running out of fuel. As someone who had worked in an emergency room, she knew it didn’t look good. 
 
 Only a passing motorist prevented her from becoming yet another driver who died in a snow-buried car. 
 
 She credits him with saving her life. 
 
 Rossi had started out at 3 a.m. Tuesday from Mercy Hospital in South Buffalo, where she works as a pharmacy technician, for her home in Lancaster. Ordinarily, she would have left much earlier, but she put in an extra shift when the night technician couldn’t make it in. 
 
 “On a clear road, it takes me 20-plus minutes to get home,” she said, “but I didn’t get far before I started getting stuck. There always seemed to be someone behind me to push me out.” 
 
 At Transit and William, however, she had no such luck. In fact, her luck turned worse with the snowplow and more snow. She stayed in the car, and before her phone died, she called her daughter, who advised her to keep the car’s tailpipe clear of snow so she could run the engine to keep warm without poisoning herself with carbon monoxide. 
 
 “I kept watching the news, and it was freaking me out,” said Madelyn Rossi, 17. “I called my mother and told her she had to dig out the tailpipe so it doesn’t get clogged.” 
 
 Karen Rossi couldn’t open the car door. 
 
 “So I rolled the window down and used a sweatshirt to dig along the car to make a tunnel to keep the tailpipe clear,” she said. “Every hour and a half, I would go back. The tunnel would collapse, and I’d have to dig again.” 
 
 As her phone battery began to run out, she texted her daughter repeatedly, telling her, “My phone’s going to die. I love you.” 
 
 Eventually, Rossi decided she had to try to attract attention to her plight. 
 
 Once again, she climbed out through the car window. This time she dug upward with the sweatshirt and a snow brush. 
 
 “I finally got up to where I could see the sky,” she said. “I was standing on the window frame, but I couldn’t see out. I started waving the bright red snow brush. Little did I know, there was no one coming.” 
 
 She climbed back down into the front seat and waited. 
 
 “Sitting in the car, it’s funny what you think about,” she said. “You get punchy. You realize the magnitude of the situation. You never think this is the way you’re going to pass away. I started to think about my life and my family and my daughters.” 
 
 Rossi, who just turned 47, found a scrap of paper in her purse, tore it in half and started farewell notes to her daughters. 
 
 “I wrote letters to both of them,” she said. 
 
 Although she was wet, cold and exhausted, she continued to climb out the window, crawl her way up and wave the red snow brush out of the hole in the snowbank, hoping it would attract someone’s attention. Finally, it did. 
 
 “He saw me because I had decided to crawl out the window and started digging up and finally broke through with the red snow brush,” she said. “I waved that forever. My arm would get sore, and I would stop, and then start again.” 
 
 Then she heard a voice. 
 
 “I see you, I’m going to get you out,” a man’s voice yelled out. “I have a shovel.” 
 
 She realized she was going to make it. 
 
 “You get this shot of adrenalin,” she said. 
 
 The voice belonged to David Edwards, who was en route home from his job with the railroad. 
 
 “He climbed over everything. He dug me out,” she said. “He pulled me over the snowbank and put me in his truck. He had a big black monster truck thing with heated seats. He would never get stuck. 
 
 “I was disoriented and soaking wet and freezing cold. He stayed with me and he talked with me. I kept realizing he didn’t have to do any of this stuff, but he was just an amazing person. I’m so thankful that God sent him.” 
 
 Finding the street into Rossi’s housing development blocked with deep snow, Edwards drove her to his home in the Village of Lancaster, stopping to help motorists in distress along the way. 
 
 “He kept asking, ‘Do you mind if I help this one get out?’ ” she said. “He must have helped four other people.” 
 
 After getting Rossi dried and warmed at his house, Edwards tried again to take her home. The closest he could get was a friend’s house in a neighboring development, where a path had been opened. She stayed there overnight. 
 
 “Just having pajamas and warm, dry socks,” she said, “it felt like heaven.” 
 
 She eventually got home Wednesday afternoon, and later calculated that she was buried in snow from 3 a.m. Tuesday to 4 p.m. that afternoon. 
 
 “I’ll never think about things the same. I made so many promises to myself in the car. I’ll never sweat the small stuff again,” she said. 
 
 When the mother and daughter were reunited, both were overcome with emotion. 
 
 “We burst into tears and hugged each other,” Madelyn said. 
 
 And the farewell letters she wrote to her daughters? 
 
 “My kids don’t even want to see them,” Rossi said, because they don’t want to think about losing her. 
 
 But Rossi is keeping the two notes, thinking that some day her daughters may want to read what she once believed would be her last words. 
 
 email: danderson@buffnews.com ||||| GREENWICH, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A 13-year-old boy died after he and another boy were pulled from a snow bank in Washington County Tuesday evening. 
 
 The community is now grieving and trying to figure out how something as simple as building a snow fort turned into such a devastating tragedy. 
 
 At a press conference Wednesday morning, Greenwich Police Chief George Bell repeatedly commended the investigators he said dug through tons of packed snow to find 13-year-old Joshua J. Demarest, and 12-year-old Tyler J. Day. 
 
 “Day tells his dad and my officers in the emergency room last night that he heard, what he believed was, beeping sounds and the next thing you know it went black,” Chief Bell said. 
 
 Both boys live on Rock Road, where the incident occurred. Police say the boys were digging holes for forts in a snow bank in a parking lot where public works crews dump plowed snow. 
 
 Around 5 p.m., Chief Bell says Day’s sister reported him missing when he and Demarest never returned home from playing outside. Police say public works crews were out plowing snow around the same time. 
 
 Investigators searching for the children followed tracks from behind the house of the boys to a parking lot, where a State Police K-9 unit found a sled covered in snow. 
 
 The sled belonged to one of the boys. The sled was found close to where they children were trapped. 
 
 Police say over a dozen police, firefighters and other investigators dug with their hands and shovels to move hundreds of pounds of hard packed snow. 
 
 “I bet they moved seven tons of snow easily out of that pile by hand, shovels, snow rakes,” Chief Bell said. 
 
 At around 7:15 p.m., nearly four hours after, it’s believed the last DPW crew dumped snow on the bank, trapping the boys. Police say Demarest was found unresponsive, and emergency personnel immediately began to perform CPR. 
 
 Investigators found Day a few minutes later. Both boys were rushed to Saratoga Hospital, where Demarest was pronounced dead a little after 10 p.m. 
 
 Day suffered from hypothermia, but is now home recovering. 
 
 “You can actually see the little pocket in that huge bank that he survived in and it is nothing short of a miracle,” police said. 
 
 Department of Public Works Superintendent Leo Flynn says there’s no way his workers could have seen the teens. 
 
 “The guys are devastated,” said Flynn. “I mean again, they’re all firemen. They all have kids in the school and grandkids and yeah, they’re struggling with it as to be expected.” 
 
 “A true accident,” Chief Bell said. “That’s all I can tell you. A tragedy all the way around. There was no way that anybody could have seen the kids burrowed in back there.” 
 
 the photo 13-year-old Joshua Demarest's grandfather wanted to share of him today, his former teacher says he loved the outdoors and soccer pic.twitter.com/4whbVDWV92 — Lindsay Nielsen (@Lindsayon10) December 14, 2016 
 
 On Wednesday, mourners came to lay flowers in memory of Demarest. Flowers were put there by Day’s father. He says his son is physically okay, but not doing well with this horrific tragedy that killed his friend. 
 
 Superintendent of Greenwich Schools Mark Fish says he was an active boy who loved the outdoors and soccer. 
 
 “I found out he was in the French Club as well, I wouldn’t have known that but you know, pretty well rounded. Good student. Well-liked by his peers,” Fish said. 
 
 The school of course has counselors on hand to help students and staff and the superintendent says they will be there as long as they are needed. 
 
 A rose left at the snow bank in Greenwich where 13yr old Joshua Demarest was trapped yesterday and later died pic.twitter.com/o7zYKRCtsp — Lindsay Nielsen (@Lindsayon10) December 14, 2016
– A 46-year-old man died overnight in a car buried in snow in a Buffalo suburb, becoming the fifth casualty so far in the monster storm that dumped up to 6 feet in the region. The freak "wall of snow" has no meteorological term, according to a National Weather Service rep, who calls it "a historic event" and describes "whiteout to blue sky in a very, very short distance." The Buffalo News notes the storm "unleashed historic amounts of snow" in half of Erie County "while the sun shone brightly" on the other half." Indeed, a spot a mile from Lancaster saw 60 inches; Buffalo Niagara International Airport, just 6 miles northwest, logged 3.9 inches. Some 150 vehicles were stranded, reports the AP, with a 132-mile swath of the New York State Thruway shut down and some motorists trapped for 24 hours. Elsewhere: Among the stranded vehicles was a bus carrying the Niagara University women's basketball team; the players were stuck for almost 30 hours before being rescued today. The women ran through all their food and water and were forced to drink melted snow, notes the Washington Post. "It started to get bad fast at about 2am (Tuesday) and we came to a dead stop and haven't moved since," the Niagara coach told the AP last night. "It was a rough weekend for us on the court and it just won't end." The casualties also included three people who died of heart problems, two of them while shoveling snow, notes the AP. Another man died while trying to push a stuck car out of a drift. The storm canceled half the flights at Buffalo's airport, and a local hospital was operating with a skeleton staff, notes the News. "Many of our nurses couldn't get into work today," said a nurse who hitched a ride with a snowmobiler. "They wanted to, but they couldn't get in." The rate at which the snow fell—as fast as 5 inches per hour—was too intense for snowblowers to deal with; the News adds that plows can't function in more than 2 or 3 feet of snow. Click for a gallery of images from the storm.