Harold Mcneil
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
(TNS)
Jun. 8—The president of the Buffalo firefighters union is criticizing the report analyzing the response to the 2022 Christmas weekend blizzard as a whitewashed depiction of the Buffalo Fire Department's preparedness.
A week after the release of a New York University analysis of the response to the blizzard that killed 31 Buffalo residents, Vincent Ventresca said that the report unjustly relieves some city officials in leadership from any responsibility.
He also claimed the report was given to the City of Buffalo in draft form weeks before its official release in an "obvious effort to edit the material and soften the blow." He called the city's efforts an "epic failure to prepare for and respond to a snowstorm in Western New York."
"The Buffalo blizzard report is nothing more than a fluff piece, put together in an effort to slowly cover up the glaring failures of people in leadership roles within the City of Buffalo, up to, during and after the blizzard," said Ventresca on Thursday in prepared remarks during a news conference at the union's headquarters on Southside Parkway.
A few of the main takeaways from the report include Buffalo needing to prioritize better public communication when it comes to being more prepared for future extreme weather and working to upgrade its infrastructure and utilities to respond more equitably to emergencies such as this one.
The report offered praise for the city's response effort, including those by city police, firefighters and first responders who trudged, often on foot, through whiteout conditions for search and rescue operations.
"The actions of many of the respondents were heroic. However, we don't consider this level of loss of life anything but tragic," said Ventresca, president of Buffalo professional Firefighters Association Local 282.
Instead of taking a proactive approach to preparing for the storm, Ventresca said the city's response was reactive.
"The report stated that despite these significant challenges, aspects of Buffalo's response were highly successful and demonstrated resourcefulness and bravery under immense pressure. Which ones? What aspect of this response was highly effective? That was not our members' experience," Ventresca said.
He also criticized lead researcher Sarah M. Kaufman for only speaking with a few of the dozen ranking members within the Fire Department who actually worked during the once-in-a-generation blizzard. She was denied access to speak with a third firefighter by Fire Commissioner William Renaldo, Ventresca said.
He added that Kaufman did speak to Renaldo to gain his command perspective about the storm response but Renaldo had left three days prior to the storm for a vacation in Florida.
"The report repeatedly states that this is a generational storm. It may have been a bad storm but, as the report also stated, the City of Buffalo is no stranger to snowstorms. So why aren't we prepared for them?" he said.
He also noted that many firehouses were not equipped with cots or even meals while housing stranded residents during the storm.
Even some members were stranded in their own firehouses, in some cases for over 96 hours, because there was no plan in place to relieve them, he said.
He also was troubled that the report claims the department was able to maintain full staffing at firehouses as a result of a well-developed reserve plan that allowed firefighters to transport residents to essential medical services, like dialysis appointments.
"They maintained full staffing because we were fully staffed at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. Period. There was no plan," Ventresca said.
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