The blizzard that hit the northeast over the weekend also took the life of a 22-year-old woman in Buffalo, New York.
The family of Charlotte, North Carolina, native Anndel Taylor told WSOC-TV she was caught in the storm while driving home from work in Buffalo, the outlet reported Monday.
Taylor informed family via a group chat that she was trapped in the snow and also shared video taken from inside her vehicle.
“She was telling my sister that she was scared,” Shawnequa Brown, her sister, recalled.
After the young woman called 911 she waited for crews to rescue her, but they were unable to get to her location. According to her mother, Wanda Brown Steele, her daughter was planning to rest for a while then try walking home once the storm calmed.
However, she was later found dead inside the vehicle after being in the car for what her family believes was nearly 20 hours.
It seemed that everyone who tried to rescue her also became trapped. “Fire department, police, everybody got stuck,” commented Tomeshia Brown, the young woman’s sister.
In a social media post Tuesday, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown informed citizens that cleanup was underway but added there was “another confirmed seven deaths, bringing the death toll in the City of Buffalo to 27.”
Temperatures are expected to level out Tuesday after the blizzard left approximately 62 people dead nationwide, according to CBS News.
“In New York state, authorities described ferocious conditions, particularly in Buffalo, with hours-long whiteouts, bodies being discovered in vehicles and under snow banks, and emergency personnel going ‘car to car’ searching for survivors,” the report said.
Meanwhile, Steele told WSOC-TV she believes carbon monoxide poisoning took her daughter’s life.
“The car was running, and the snow was still coming, so it blocked the pipes, the exhaust pipe. Then after the car cut off, that’s when she iced up,” she commented.
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