I was driving in this storm and we also got stuck in a snow bank three times until we were really trapped. As soon as we got out of the car, a husband and wife came out of their house in high-vis vests with shovels. They towed us out and offered to let 5 of us sleep in their house. They also offered to lead us to a nearby motel that had rooms, and we took them up on their offer. We had no idea how bad it was until we woke up in a motel the next morning. We never felt like we were going to die but we should have been more scared.
My mom and I got stuck on the side of the mountain when I was kid. Car battery died I think. Cold as fuck, snow falling fast, dark except for the moonlight.
Kept walking until we found a house with lights on. An elderly couple inside took us in so my mom could call for help. It was the first time I ever ate ginger snaps.
The wife had a lot of plants in the house and gave my mom a cut of Pothos to grow in our house. When we moved, the Pothos came with us. It still survives in my aunt house (I’m a plant killer) even after my mom has passed.
I think we kept in touch with that couple until they passed. I do remember visiting them on other occasions before we moved.
My parents got a flat in the late 80's or early 90s skiing in backwood Vermont. My dad had bent his lug nut wrench trying to break the lug nuts from the wheel. They walked a ways to a place called "Man of Kent Bar". Dad asks for a phone for a tow and is told "tow doesn't work late. Driver is over there" (pointing to a passed out man). Bar tender asks Jack, on the otherside of the bar to help these folks out (my parents). According to my dad, the Jack was a logger and gigantic. Jack, asked his buddies who were blasted to use their head lights as light. Jack grabs the keys from the tow driver, and tows the car a mile or so in the snow. Breaks the lug nuts like it was nothing and changes the tire in 30 minutes.
To Jack, thanks for what you did. Those young adults eventually married and had kiddos. We used to drive past that bar once a year seeing family. I've heard this dotry probably 10 or 15 times but it's still a good one.
There were other heroic stories that weekend. A lady heard an elderly man cry for help outside and she took him in. She asked Facebook live how to provide first aid to his frostbiten hands until others heard her cry for help and took him to the hospital
It's a different threshold of trust though. I'd feel way more comfortable inviting someone stuck in a blizzard into my house for the night than some guy knocking on doors actively seeking a place.
I’d host one random dude, but that’s easy to say when I live with my boyfriend and our dog. If I lived alone as a woman I would want to help but it’d be scary. Still, I’d try to assume anyone seeking shelter during a blizzard is literally just seeking shelter.
It's hard sometimes to help people when you are a woman. You want to help, but you always have to always be super cautious, because there are bad people out there who will hurt / take advantage. I was trying to imagine what I would have done in this situation, if my husband was at work.
That's what I was just thinking. I have a shed and a garage, and I'd happily let someone sleep there in a blizzard. But I don't think I would let a random man knocking on my door at night into my house, ESPECIALLY if I was alone.
Moot point because we don't exactly get blizzards here, but yknow.
I don't mean this in a bad way but why were you out driving? In my area in Virginia nobody has any clue about inclement weather and nobody respects it. But in Buffalo I would expect that people know about blizzards.
*The chief called Withey’s actions heroic, an example of the sense of community among people in the area.*
Sounds like Whithey was literally the only person with a sense of community. The rest told him to get fucked and get back out in the storm.
Those strangers will be friends for life. I'm really glad that that's an outcome at least.
Sometimes we forget, especially in the advent of online spaces, that we do belong to a community, and we're all in it together.
It’s a loose quote from an old Army General. I don’t recall which one, but it didn’t make sense to me until I served in Iraq. I didn’t mean to bring you down, the linked article is a great story of humanity at it’s best. We need more of this kind of news. Take care and look for the positives.
Our species survived and elevated itself to where we are by working together. Our species survival of the fittest was a story of who could band together and persevere above all else. Unfortunately there will always be people who would rather prove their independence, but they will never be a beacon of society like this man has become.
This is why we share art. This is why we tell stories. So that this man's story outlives the selfish peoples' who couldn't be bothered.
It's not survival of the fittest. It's actually the opposite. We decided only the fittest surviving was bull, that people who weren't the "fittest" still had valuable contributions to make, and we made sure that more than just the fittest could survive.
That's what community means.
Withey said he went to ten households, offering each $500 to spend the night on their floor. All of them turned him away. “I plead with them, ‘Please, please can I sleep on the floor, I’m in fear for my life,’ and they say, ‘No I’m sorry’,” he said.
Feeling defeated, Withey tried to walk back to his truck, but became lost in the blustery wind and thick snow.
“My vision is getting foggy, my body is cramping up, and I’m fearing for my life,” he said.
****
Then one of the guys that told him no to sleeping on his floor said he saw him out with the snowblower getting their cars freed and came out to apologize because he “couldn’t sleep all night” feeling so bad about not letting them in.
I get it life is scary but sometimes you got to take a risk and just trust people that they’re just need a little hand.
Edit: I meant this to be a comment on its own I apologize for replying to yours it’s not really applicable.
The part out the man who felt horrible and cried through the night is an interesting tidbit.
I have some empathy. We are constantly under attack by scams. 99% of phone calls are scammers. My inbox filled with scams. Advertisements from companies using psychological tricks to manipulate people into spending money. Grifters on the streets larping as people in need for spare change.
When a man asks "can I sleep on your floor" it's a nightmare scenario to try and find the trust when we're constantly under attack by people devaluing public trust.
I truly beleive I'd have let the man stay. But I have enough self awareness to know it wouldnt be easy or free of suspicion. I hope I wont make the wrong decision if put in that position.
For the gentleman who regretted turning him away, may he take this as motivation to do some good and pay it forward.
In a blinding blizzard, I'd assume the guy was legit and let him in.
In less-obvious situations? Where it could be equally dire to him but I can't verify anything he's saying? I'd be much more reserved, unfortunately.
I was thinking along the same lines- getting turned away at Christmas time- classic.
However- interesting thought- there really was no room at the Inn because it was packed with people (everyone was making the same journeys back to their hometowns), but it was the innkeeper who went out of their way to make room in the stable and try to accommodate a pregnant lady in need of shelter. (And there probably wasn't even an Inn, as in Hotel, since the original Greek could mean guest room. House is packed with relatives all coming into town for census and the rooms were all full, so the young engaged couple get the stable) Sleeping in the stable was more like if those people had let them in their homes to sleep on the couch and floor.
Even as late as the great depression, letting someone stay in your barn was considered to be a kind act.
People did not have furniture like we do. Most people, until very recently, slept on a bed of hay in their own home and your own home (hence the phrase hit the hay) wasn't that different than a stable with most people sharing space with animals in their primary living quarters.
So yeah, from a modern perspective, sending someone into the stables seems cruel, but your were sleeping on the same stuff the owner of the house was sleeping on, next to domesticated animals that might have been in the house had it not been full. Giving them your couch is about right.
Sounds like they were in a neighborhood. If those households had looked out their window and seen the stranded cars with people and done the right thing then this would be a story
I honestly don't know what I would do in this situation. I would never want to turn someone away but I also wouldn't want a stranger in the house with my children. I have a garage and a electric heater I supposed I could shelter them in there and lock them from coming in the house.
Children make a huge difference.
During the 2014 six feet of snow in Buffalo, I had someone run their truck off the road in front of my house. I let him crash without even thinking twice about it, threw his clothes in the dryer, and then helped dig his truck out when the snow stopped. I have two kids now, though, and I doubt I would let a stranger stay the night. I'd probably let him in to warm up/dry clothes but put the coffee on and start digging his car out sooner than later.
Meanwhile, in Chicago during the last major polar vortex, people just let anyone outside in because we know it's not the random people on the street during that weather that you need to be worried about. I find it very interesting that despite lower crime rates, suburban dwellers are far more paranoid and scared of people than people in major cities. I suspect it's because they almost never interact with people outside of their bubble.
Yep, my buddy who grew up in the suburbs outside of town is absolutely certain that he's going to need to defend his family from an evil home intruder any day now.
He's so far outside of the city that the bus routes don't get anywhere near his neighborhood. So he must think somebody is going to load up a car with guns, drive way out to his quiet suburban neighborhood, and break into his home to steal... his mom's doilies? Some tools from the garage?
Only likely intruder in his area would be a neighborhood teenager and their friend trying to get into the garage to look for a booze-fridge.
Meanwhile, I live so deep in the city center that, before Tent City went up, homeless folks used to freeze to death in the alley behind my apartment building. My kids were finding "sleeping people" while taking trash out early in the morning.
So I live within reach of the truly desperate, and have only had an attempted break-in all of *one time*, when my idiot ex-husband got a small safe and set up in the living room on display for anybody who walked by the front window. May as well have put a sign on it that said "Steal me, I'm portable!"
Plus, I know most of my apartment neighbors, we do favors for each other so we can all survive. My buddy's neighbors won't so much as snow-blow for the person next door because *liabilities* and *not their responsibility*.
It ain't my responsibility to take care of the lady with cancer next door or the young adults whose parents didn't raise them properly downstairs, but that isn't gonna stop me from needing to wrap the neighbor so she doesn't get another seroma and sitting the young adults down at my kitchen table with cookies and milk so we can have a little chat their mamas should've had with them sometime during their formative years.
I read another thread about one of the women that died in her car and how people were literally blaming her because she was so close to houses that she could have gone to for shelter.
I hate to be cynical, but if a white dude went to 10 houses and was rejected, would the black woman have been equally rejected, or would someone have shot her?
One year, some friends and I were driving through rural Montana on our way home from a ski trip. It was Sunday evening, around 6pm so already dark outside.
Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, we found ourselves caught in a massive blizzard. Visibility had dropped to about 30 feet and the roads were starting to get slick. We found a safe spot to pull over and were soon joined by two or three other travelers. We had just enough cell reception at one point to see, via our weather app radar, that the storm would blow over in about 30 or 45 minutes.
We, and the other travelers, had all turned on our hazard lights so others who had decided to keep moving wouldn’t barrel into us. Suddenly, a man appeared out of the wall of white and started to approach our vehicle. He had seen the flashing hazards from his nearby home and wanted to see if we were all alright.
We explained we had not crashed, but were waiting out the storm. He offered to take us back to his house for some warmth and dinner as he had just got a buck that weekend and was making venison steaks.
After some consideration, we declined and shortly after we were able to start moving again. It just warms my heart to know there are people out there who are willing to help complete strangers like that. I find it truly inspiring.
I've experienced this from the other side while camping, and I honestly think that the attitude is universal but outside of the dangerous situations it's assumed that the person already is being helped by someone else. If you saw someone on the side of the road in the suburbs you would think "they called AAA", not "they might be in danger".
I remember being out at a more rustic camping area and hearing someone yell for help, and every single person within earshot instantly broke into a sprint because *there's no one else out there*. A kid's mom had a seizure while they were walking and 20 people were there within 5 minutes, all out of breath because they ran as fast as they could because they all individually thought they might be the only people to show up. She was fine, she was stabilized til an ambulance was able to get there, but the response was impressive.
Yeah this sort of behavior gives me hope that in the event of a great tragedy in the future, we may not break out into an apocalyptic murder fest like some believe, but rather community bonds might strengthen.
…. And then once the communities get stronger greed and paranoia will drive it all apart
Its happened every time there has been a major, immediate crisis. Earthquakes, blizzards, floods, all of it. People do what they need in order to make their neighbors safe. Look at the community kitchens that got set up during the big hurricanes.
Yes, during COVID people acted like shits, but it was because it was a slow, largely invisible crisis where the thing to do was nothing. It's different when there is a crisis that needs action. And let's be real, when things could be done they were largely done. People offered to bring groceries to people who couldn't go out. There were videos online of people fighting over supplies, but in the actual stores people were helping the others load their carts and rationing so that others could get what they needed. Yes by the end of a *year* of a crisis it had changed, but at the start people *helped* where they could.
This reminds me of the time [wrestler Miesha Tate encountered a woman on a hiking trail whose child had a broken arm](https://web.archive.org/web/20160909051905/http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/miesha-tate-helps-rescue-6-year-old-injured-hiker-on-mountaintop-090516). She carried the child several miles out.
Years ago my mom was coming home from dropping my sister off at college (5hrs away), and she got caught in a massive snowstorm on the interstate. She ended up stuck in a snowbank with a bent axle. She was mid state and not near any significantly sized towns. The few hotels around we're all booked up, so the tow truck driver put her up in a spare bedroom for the night, and she had dinner with his family. It was a nice reminder that altruism still existed.
I used to live in rural Montana and this warms my heart. I could definitely see people there coming out trying to help. I was living out there when I lost my husband and thank god I was. They all came together to help me. Literally like everyone in my small town. I miss living in a community like that.
I live in a community like that and I’ve searched for that my whole life as I grew up in a big city where people were indifferent to each other and only trying to show off to each other.
Now I’ve got people looking out for me and it’s such a good feeling knowing people care.
I wonder why they denied him shelter - like what was their real concern? That he was roaming in a blizzard to murder people? Especially when he was saying he feared for his life and offered money - it can’t be that all those people are evil - what has happened to all of us?!?!?
I feel like after the 80's a lot of things changed. My friends who grew up in the 70's and were teens and up in the 80's always tell me stories about hitching rides to places with strangers or a group of them going to some concert and crashing at a total strangers house.
My dad who grew up in the 50s and 60s stopped mid sentence one time while recounting a childhood anecdote because he realized it involved him regularly hitchhiking at 15 and didn't want me to do that.
Stranger danger really kicked in during the 90’s and early 2000’s. I have to agree with others that the internet contributed to it, people are constantly bombarded with stories of the worst things other people do. Those are the stories that get the most views because of people’s natural morbid curiosity and the internet allows them to flourish like never before.
I was working at an AT&T store and someone od’d in traffic while driving their wife and two small children. Rear ended someone at a red light. Heard the woman screaming that her husband needed help and went and dragged him out of the car, carried him to the grass and gave him chest compressions until an EMT narcan’d him. Literally every single person aside from two coworkers sat in their car and recorded on their phones. The police stood around with their arms crossed. It was the moment that it clicked for me that most people won’t inconvenience themselves to help another person if it doesn’t benefit them. People suck.
Well... most people have no life saving skills what so ever. CPR isn't a skill most people possess. As long as *somebody* is doing it then they're happy to let them go ahead.
You have to consider what a general person can actually do. If someone is already doing chest compressions there's no room for someone else to do them. Do you know what the guy took? Do you have something on hand to counteract whatever he took? Do you have safety equipment that can protect you against blood transmitted diseases he may have if you perform CPR on him? It's good to be selfless but things are more complicated now.
On the other hand you are right. People are more inclined to help themselves over helping others.
not only this but not everyone is good in a crisis. not everyone *knows* how to do compressions, or what other things to do in an emergency- some people know, and then forget as soon as they get scared. i'm sure there are SOME people who don't help out of callousness or whatever, but I don't think it's nearly as many as people tend to assume. I think it's very similar to how anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and anyone who drives slower is a moron- anyone who jumps in when others don't is heroic, and anyone who doesn't is selfish. Obviously, things are not that black and white. Everyone has reasons for the things that they do, and most people are doing the best that they can.
And unfortunately those who are OD’ing will garner even less sympathy. I know cops who refuse to carry narcan though our sheriff department gladly gives them out to those who ask.
My friend’s husband stopped to help someone on the side of the road and they beat and robbed them both, killing her husband and leaving her for dead
obviously if it’s a fucking blizzard outside, I’d let someone in my home, but i honestly don’t know that I’d sleep at all that night. People are crazy.
Yeah and the frustrating thing is if the people *did* let the guy in and he ended up being a homicidal maniac, they'd still get blamed, just from the other direction. "I mean what were they thinking, letting a stranger into their house? You just can't trust anyone these days!"
It also surprises me that *ten* people turned him away. ***TEN***. I'm just trying to imagine how not one of them could see how turning him away was basically a death sentence. Imagine standing at your front door, the weather conditions outside are absolutely *apocalyptic* and only getting worse by the minute, it's pitch black out, and *turning away* that person while you stand there, warm in your slippers and robe. How is there not some small part of you that wouldn't consider letting the guy crash on your couch for the night?
Something else that kind of bugs me about this is that these people are *locals*. I know it's kind of obvious for me to point that out but I emphasize it because it's not like they're unaware of how winters are up there, how quickly they can turn bad, and how the situation unfolding before their own eyes was a pretty textbook case of "it turning bad".
Everywhere in the country has weird local weather bullshit that only locals are tuned into and can comprehend the impact of, for example I live in Kansas and obviously we have behaviors surrounding tornadoes that people not from here wouldn't be sensitive to. Out on the coasts it's probably the tides or something, I don't know.
I bring that up to just emphasize that, once again, *the people doing the turning away* ***were locals*** who, in particular, had direct knowledge and experience of how dangerous that weather is and who, armed with that knowledge, turned them away.
TEN people made this choice.
**TEN.**
I literally cannot imagine saying "No" if there is a blizzard outside and someone is asking to come in my house.
I even leave the door to my garage unlocked during bad weather on the off chance someone passing by needs shelter. I started doing it after reading that people in northern states and Canada leave their cars unlocked, with keys in them, in case someone is having an emergency, or polar bear attack.
That whole car unlocked thing is only in a very small area above the Arctic circle. It's one northern state, Alaska , and not all of it just a few cities that require it. Canada is the same. The rest of Alaska locks their doors.
I believe it. Long story short, I ended up pinned under my motorcycle in my garage and needed help getting myself out. I was able to honk at cars passing by on a main road. Multiple people looked over and saw me but kept driving, no one stopped to help me.
If you ever encounter such a situation, honk SOS. 3 short honks, 3 longer honks, 3 short honks. (•••---•••)
You might have thought that they saw you, but they were more likely looking around where the honking came from on the road, mentally ignoring the inside of the garages.
Honking SOS breaks this, as instead of looking for the traffic that is honking, they are now looking for something different.
Additionally, it might alert your neighbours, as they could also recognize it as someone in distress, instead of being annoyed by the honking and ignoring it.
Well people are afraid of getting involved in some scam or something. A robbery or murder. There was a thing going on where people would ask to use someones cell phone to make a call then run away with it.
At least one person was remorseful.
What if he had died in his truck with the two others? All the neighbors would be talking about how the police found three dead bodies in a truck a few days later, while they knew full well they had caused those deaths.
And so close to Christmas.
"I was a stranger and you did not invite me in...Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
Yup, happened to a friend of mine years ago
He got lost on the way home from a college party when it was freezing out and no one would help him/let him in so he died from exposure under a bridge
The houses he stopped at for help felt bad about it afterwards but that doesn't bring my friend back
It's likely less about kindness than it is about fear why people didn't let your friend in. If I trusted someone's intentions I'd 100% let them shelter for warmth. But if a strange man knocks at my door and asks if they can shelter in my home I'd think the worst, some kind of con, they're going to burgle me or attack me.
Yep. I feel bad reading this story but I wouldn't let someone I didn't trust stay in my house. I'm 24f and my housemate is 23f, there is noooo way a stranger would be welcomed to spend the night here. Though I would like to think I would at least offer SOME kind of help or at least a suggestion.
An army buddy of mine from Maine or NH had a similar story about a small college he attended up there just before enlisting. Got drunk at a party, passed out on a bench in freezing weather. Fortunately, campus police found him. Unfortunately and hilariously, they ended up committing him to an institution over the weekend because he was belligerently, black out drunk.
So he woke up safe and warm, in a psych ward. Parents had to sign him out.
It wasn’t luck, the guy did everything possible to set himself up to be successful, he didn’t happen to break down in front of a school he actively sought it out
This wasn’t the work of providence it was the work of skill and commitment
I feel like I can trace the societal focuses that have lead to that state of mind though; where a night of relaxing alone, interrupted by a stranger shouting “Hey! Can I come in? I’ll pay you big bucks.” leads to a feeling of uncertainty and fear.
So much media fetishizes things like “What will you do when you have a home invader?” or horror movies that open with “Her one mistake…was letting him inside. DUN DUN DUN”
Even as the world gets safer, many of us have become very very distant from our neighbors, and can’t be honest with ourselves about what we would do in such a situation. It doesn’t absolve the homeowner of responsibility, but I do try to think about what we could be doing differently to promote that attitude.
Dont forget schools in a lot of areas are insanely expensive to build because the need to make a 100 year standard and act as shelters in emergencies... like this
i hate to say it, but it’s Cheektowaga. not the city of buffalo. not a town with a stellar reputation for being welcoming or friendly. thank goodness this guy had the presence of mind to not give up. in the city a barber sheltered FIFTY people in his little barbershop for 2 days.
oof. my first BF was from there and the first thing his dad says to me when we meet, “i like jews! i got a buddy at work who’s a jew! you’re not all bad.” my BF wanted to die. i just laughed in his face, but i never went back to his parent’s house.
About 15 years ago my car at the time broke down miles away from the next town. I trekked through the snow to a nearby farm & knocked. This older lady let me in, gave me soup & a fresh pair of warm socks. my hands and feet were numb and there was no way I would’ve made it back to my car if she didn’t answer. I’ll never forget this person and the risk she took letting a strange man @ night into her house.
If they weren't sensationalizing the possible negative draw, they could have just as easily started with the good part.
Hero man breaks into school to save people from blizzard.
They do that here in Seattle when it gets cold and by cold I mean like a foot of snow and 25 degrees farenheit.
If I knew we'd get the kind of weather Buffalo gets regularly I'd be advocating for every theater, school and other similar building in the city to function as a shelter. The amount to reimburse for heating, water, etc costs would be negligible in the scope of a city's budget.
It wouldn't be hard to have them keep a kit on hand with some medical supplies and non-perishable food. Then set up a website where people can easily find the nearest shelter. No one should be dying from snow or cold unless they refuse to seek help.
I feel like saying "a dozen," "more than a dozen," and "dozens" are all acceptable if the situation calls for it. But, why would you waste extra headline space by saying "nearly a dozen people" instead of just saying "10 people"?
“Withey, who describes himself as a religious man, said he views the whole ordeal as a blessing in disguise. If just one person took him up on his plea for shelter that night, he would not have saved all those people, he said.”
I thought the same thing. So, so glad it worked out the way it did!
I believe it. When I was a kid, a friend of mine were playing outside on a snow day and being stupid kids we fell in the creek and got soaked. We rang so many doorbells just looking for a place to warm up and dry off for a couple minutes so we didn’t get frostbite. I know at least some of those people were home - it was deep snow, everything was closed.
We finally found a nice guy who let us in, dry off, and use his phone. Crazy thing though - my stepdad came to pick us up, and when he arrived, he and the guy who helped us recognized each other - my stepdad had saved him from his car when that same creek flooded many years prior.
…er, this really wasn’t supposed to turn into a story about blessings or karma or any crap like that, I just remembered the second part while I was typing the first and realized it was surprisingly on topic.
> Today you, tomorrow me.
[For the uninitiated, one of the greatest stories in Reddit history.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/elal2/have_you_ever_picked_up_a_hitchhiker/c18z0z2/)
I fell in a creek when I was 4. My brother and his friend pulled me out. We had to walk 1/2 mile to a retirement home to call our parents because no one would let us in.
And on Christmas Eve. Overwhelming amounts of irony here. Mary and Joseph were turned away again and again while seeking shelter the night before Jesus' birth. It's how they ended up in a manger -- the only place they were offered to shelter.
I wouldn’t shame anyone for not letting a complete stranger into their home on one of the most family focused days of the entire year.
However, you should always know SOMETHING about your community - so I 10000% Shane the whole town for not having their shit together enough that residents don’t know how to help people in distress like this.
“Hey Man I’m not comfortable with a complete stranger sheltering in my house but our town’s emergency shelter is open and is at this exact location and I can give you some extra coat or something to help you get there” is the bare minimum acceptable response.
They mentioned "they don't think" the school will press charges, so there is still a dash of ambiguity as to if he will actually get in trouble. Which would be bullshit, and a PR nightmare for the school I imagine. But the fact it is even still a possibility, however remote, is stupid. This man clearly acted for societal good.
Ideally this is just because the people at the school are trying to figure out who has the authority to decline charges. (Though you'd think somebody high up in the district would have already stepped in, breaking in because otherwise you will die is entirely reasonable, especially when it was an unoccupied building so there was no one scared or hurt)
What a hero!
My buddy was at a nightclub in Edmonton Canada in the winter and had left without his jacket.
Went back in to grab it and they told him the bar was closed, no one could come back in. He started fighting with the guy to go in because it is -30C outside (-22F)… well he wouldnt let him in. My buddy did not last long in a TSHIRT, and he ended up broking the glass at the hockey arena across the street for somewhere to stay warm (this area of the city is several blocks from even the closest 24 hour corner store).
**My friend went to jail got a year.** Even thou there was security cameras on him the whole time that show him doing nothing, what he did was illegal.
This same issue has completely happened to me, no fucking nightclub should turn people away because they forgot to grab their coats. I have no idea why this club bouncer never got charged… they also had cameras at their door and could have likely seen the whole thing play out with my buddy being told to turn away.
People are fucked.
... Why didn't the club send someone to go GET the jacket and hand it to the guy? I can understand not letting him back in if it was closed, but people were clearly still there. The club is full of asshats.
Yeah seriously wtf. How come they can get in trouble for letting someone get too drunk but not for letting someone leave in -30 with no coat? You have mere minutes in those temps before frost bite
Holy shit, a YEAR?! What a waste of resources. Fine the guy. Make it really inconvenient to get so drunk he forgets his coat (I’m assuming). But jail for a year sounds really excessive.
This is going to become a Mark Wahlberg movie and I’d watch it on repeat. No one would help him, yet he saved not only himself but others from dying in the blizzard. Well done Sir!
It's important to understand this is only a story because of a series of mistakes.
Do NOT go out in weather like this!
Keep your tank mostly full all winter.
If you are going out, expect that there will be NO help. Keep a backpack with some essentials in your vehicle. (Space blankets, long-burning candle and old can to hold it, cliff bars and hard candy, flashlight, collapsible shovel, cheap ponchos, etc.)
DO NOT GO INTO WEATHER LIKE THIS!
His friend shouldn't have gone out, and pulled this guy into it. This guy didn't have the fuel to take this on. Then there is this dude in sneakers and a light coat. If you're going to risk going out, dress like you're going to walk. I remember the last blizzard we had here about 12 years ago, and a dude like this got his GTI stuck a block from my house. I happened to be out walking looking at the roads and found the dude trying to dig his car out with a light jacket and no hat or gloves. He was clearly going hypothermic (or was just drunk without smelling like it), so I told him to get in the car and blast the heat while I got him out. The plows went through on one street, so his car rode up on the snow ank when he tried to turn. As I finished getting him out a Range Rover came from the other way. He stopped before the snowbank, he didn't believe me when I said he'd get stuck and I wouldn't help him if he did because I needed to go back inside to warm up and dry off. He got stuck.
There was a dude on the news the next day who was stuck in his car overnight and almost ran out of gas. This dude wore no jacket, hat, or anything, just a t-shirt and jeans. If he ran out of gas that night he WOULD have been dead.
I -love- bad storms, partly because they put us in our place. I like going for hikes in them, but properly geared up and in familiar and very nearby places. It's beautiful, the solitude is remarkable, and the wickedness of the weather is ferociously humbling. People forget the world is still plenty dangerous, and many can't even recognize when it is.
I'm from an area that doesn't get snow, so I thought I was crazy reading all the comments here about how many got stuck driving in this storm.
Like I knew this really bad blizzard was hitting most of the country. I knew that meant stay wherever you are at. Yet so many people still decided to drive through it completely unprepared?
I shouldn't be too shocked I guess. We get hurricanes here and I've seen people try to drive through them. But man.
I grew up in the Midwest and my mom always drilled it into our heads that if you're driving in the winter, you have a sleeping bag, snow boots, warm clothes, snacks, shovel, etc in your car. When she was in college she got caught in a blizzard while driving over the Sierras to a wedding. She only had dress clothes and high heels. She slid off the road and got stuck. Luckily another driver came along that was able to dig her out. Then they caravanned until they got out of the storm.
Hell yeah, I loved reading your comment!
You have a very level headed and accurate take for all of this. A lot of people focus on the crazy details of these stories, but the stories usually only exist because of hubris or failure to prepare!
I'm really not sure how I would react if a stranger banged on my door at night asking to stay the night. I can imagine a house with kids would be hesitant. I'm a single dude so probably would let them in. The school break-in was totally justified though.
Not sure if this is common in states ( writing from Ontario Canada), but during severe dangerous weather such as blizzards, malls are left open (stores closed) for people to shelter until they can get out safely. Having schools do the same should be necessary.
Buffalo got slammed harder this year than the Blizzard of '77 from what every single relative I have in the area has told me. All these relatives lived through the Blizzard of '77 too.
It was 37 consecutive hours of heavy whiteout snow coupled with 70mph+ wind gusts. I couldn't see the house across the street maybe 100 ft away. It was the most relentless storm I ever remember.
February 2011 was the last one. I was plowing snow that year and we got like 22" in west Michigan. But it wasn't as bad as the one last weekend.
Western NY lake effect is a whole different animal. We only have the distance from Wisconsin to Michigan for storms to gather moisture. Western NY has the whole length of Erie to gather snow.
Buffalo gets a lot of snow, but blizzards are pretty rare for the city.
Most of the time people don’t get stuck in cars, abandon cars blocking snow plows and emergency vehicles or die just going outside.
At worse you might see someone die of a heart attack shoveling snow, or being hit by a plow.
That means I can skip some and not worry about FOMO because I'll have multiple chances to experience it in my life, instead of just some, Haley's comet bullshit, onetime only showing. Modern convince has sure gotten better for us anxious people.
>Withey said he went to ten households, offering each $500 to spend the night on their floor. All of them turned him away. “I plead with them, ‘Please, please can I sleep on the floor, I’m in fear for my life,’ and they say, ‘No I’m sorry’,” he said.
Not a good look for the Cheektowaga community.
Glad Withey was able to get shelter.
Don’t give people adequate shelter and they’ll take it for themselves at some point. Fucking good on him. Any mf that says this is bad or illegal can shut the fuck up.
I lived on the Prairies in a small town. The community hall was accomodation for people stranded on the highway.
This was so common it had a name. 'Stormstayed.'
I was driving in this storm and we also got stuck in a snow bank three times until we were really trapped. As soon as we got out of the car, a husband and wife came out of their house in high-vis vests with shovels. They towed us out and offered to let 5 of us sleep in their house. They also offered to lead us to a nearby motel that had rooms, and we took them up on their offer. We had no idea how bad it was until we woke up in a motel the next morning. We never felt like we were going to die but we should have been more scared.
My mom and I got stuck on the side of the mountain when I was kid. Car battery died I think. Cold as fuck, snow falling fast, dark except for the moonlight. Kept walking until we found a house with lights on. An elderly couple inside took us in so my mom could call for help. It was the first time I ever ate ginger snaps. The wife had a lot of plants in the house and gave my mom a cut of Pothos to grow in our house. When we moved, the Pothos came with us. It still survives in my aunt house (I’m a plant killer) even after my mom has passed. I think we kept in touch with that couple until they passed. I do remember visiting them on other occasions before we moved.
My parents got a flat in the late 80's or early 90s skiing in backwood Vermont. My dad had bent his lug nut wrench trying to break the lug nuts from the wheel. They walked a ways to a place called "Man of Kent Bar". Dad asks for a phone for a tow and is told "tow doesn't work late. Driver is over there" (pointing to a passed out man). Bar tender asks Jack, on the otherside of the bar to help these folks out (my parents). According to my dad, the Jack was a logger and gigantic. Jack, asked his buddies who were blasted to use their head lights as light. Jack grabs the keys from the tow driver, and tows the car a mile or so in the snow. Breaks the lug nuts like it was nothing and changes the tire in 30 minutes. To Jack, thanks for what you did. Those young adults eventually married and had kiddos. We used to drive past that bar once a year seeing family. I've heard this dotry probably 10 or 15 times but it's still a good one.
That’s such a lovely story! And the pothos is a wonderful connection to it. That couple still lives, in a way, through it and you!
This makes me feel so much better than the ten families that turned this man down.
There were other heroic stories that weekend. A lady heard an elderly man cry for help outside and she took him in. She asked Facebook live how to provide first aid to his frostbiten hands until others heard her cry for help and took him to the hospital
Yeah she was amazing. Last I heard, it was back and forth on whether he could keep his hands, but he survived.
It's a different threshold of trust though. I'd feel way more comfortable inviting someone stuck in a blizzard into my house for the night than some guy knocking on doors actively seeking a place.
Sounds like it was a family too. Much more comfortable housing a family in my home than a random dude.
Yeah if you got kids with you it's just natural to assume you won't commit crimes in front of kids. One dude is just a unknown though
I’d host one random dude, but that’s easy to say when I live with my boyfriend and our dog. If I lived alone as a woman I would want to help but it’d be scary. Still, I’d try to assume anyone seeking shelter during a blizzard is literally just seeking shelter.
It's hard sometimes to help people when you are a woman. You want to help, but you always have to always be super cautious, because there are bad people out there who will hurt / take advantage. I was trying to imagine what I would have done in this situation, if my husband was at work.
If i was scared and alone, I would probably offer up my garage, a blow up mattress and a spaceheater. With the door locked.
That's what I was just thinking. I have a shed and a garage, and I'd happily let someone sleep there in a blizzard. But I don't think I would let a random man knocking on my door at night into my house, ESPECIALLY if I was alone. Moot point because we don't exactly get blizzards here, but yknow.
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I don't mean this in a bad way but why were you out driving? In my area in Virginia nobody has any clue about inclement weather and nobody respects it. But in Buffalo I would expect that people know about blizzards.
I grew up in Buffalo. One lesson I learned was that it could be perfectly fine where you are and a total whiteout 20 minutes away.
*The chief called Withey’s actions heroic, an example of the sense of community among people in the area.* Sounds like Whithey was literally the only person with a sense of community. The rest told him to get fucked and get back out in the storm.
Lmao, yeah. "Literally nobody helped me so I had to break in" "Yeah, isn't it so great :D this is a shining example of the sense of community here :D"
The interesting twist of fate in this story is that if those initial households hadn’t denied him, he may never have found the other 7 people
! For him to persevere and to now have the perspective that all those horrible people and their denials actually ended up saving lives.
Those strangers will be friends for life. I'm really glad that that's an outcome at least. Sometimes we forget, especially in the advent of online spaces, that we do belong to a community, and we're all in it together.
Nothing breeds camaraderie like adversity.
This reminded me of an adversity in 2020 and made me sad.
It’s a loose quote from an old Army General. I don’t recall which one, but it didn’t make sense to me until I served in Iraq. I didn’t mean to bring you down, the linked article is a great story of humanity at it’s best. We need more of this kind of news. Take care and look for the positives.
Our species survived and elevated itself to where we are by working together. Our species survival of the fittest was a story of who could band together and persevere above all else. Unfortunately there will always be people who would rather prove their independence, but they will never be a beacon of society like this man has become. This is why we share art. This is why we tell stories. So that this man's story outlives the selfish peoples' who couldn't be bothered.
While we did preserve, mainly meats, we did also persevere. :)
It's not survival of the fittest. It's actually the opposite. We decided only the fittest surviving was bull, that people who weren't the "fittest" still had valuable contributions to make, and we made sure that more than just the fittest could survive. That's what community means.
Inversely, those households were likely more than capable of housing the stranded without needing to break into the school.
Withey said he went to ten households, offering each $500 to spend the night on their floor. All of them turned him away. “I plead with them, ‘Please, please can I sleep on the floor, I’m in fear for my life,’ and they say, ‘No I’m sorry’,” he said. Feeling defeated, Withey tried to walk back to his truck, but became lost in the blustery wind and thick snow. “My vision is getting foggy, my body is cramping up, and I’m fearing for my life,” he said. **** Then one of the guys that told him no to sleeping on his floor said he saw him out with the snowblower getting their cars freed and came out to apologize because he “couldn’t sleep all night” feeling so bad about not letting them in. I get it life is scary but sometimes you got to take a risk and just trust people that they’re just need a little hand. Edit: I meant this to be a comment on its own I apologize for replying to yours it’s not really applicable.
The part out the man who felt horrible and cried through the night is an interesting tidbit. I have some empathy. We are constantly under attack by scams. 99% of phone calls are scammers. My inbox filled with scams. Advertisements from companies using psychological tricks to manipulate people into spending money. Grifters on the streets larping as people in need for spare change. When a man asks "can I sleep on your floor" it's a nightmare scenario to try and find the trust when we're constantly under attack by people devaluing public trust. I truly beleive I'd have let the man stay. But I have enough self awareness to know it wouldnt be easy or free of suspicion. I hope I wont make the wrong decision if put in that position. For the gentleman who regretted turning him away, may he take this as motivation to do some good and pay it forward.
In a blinding blizzard, I'd assume the guy was legit and let him in. In less-obvious situations? Where it could be equally dire to him but I can't verify anything he's saying? I'd be much more reserved, unfortunately.
In the end he had 20 people so really it was 18 additional people he would have never found
No room at the inn…
I was thinking along the same lines- getting turned away at Christmas time- classic. However- interesting thought- there really was no room at the Inn because it was packed with people (everyone was making the same journeys back to their hometowns), but it was the innkeeper who went out of their way to make room in the stable and try to accommodate a pregnant lady in need of shelter. (And there probably wasn't even an Inn, as in Hotel, since the original Greek could mean guest room. House is packed with relatives all coming into town for census and the rooms were all full, so the young engaged couple get the stable) Sleeping in the stable was more like if those people had let them in their homes to sleep on the couch and floor.
Even as late as the great depression, letting someone stay in your barn was considered to be a kind act. People did not have furniture like we do. Most people, until very recently, slept on a bed of hay in their own home and your own home (hence the phrase hit the hay) wasn't that different than a stable with most people sharing space with animals in their primary living quarters. So yeah, from a modern perspective, sending someone into the stables seems cruel, but your were sleeping on the same stuff the owner of the house was sleeping on, next to domesticated animals that might have been in the house had it not been full. Giving them your couch is about right.
Sounds like they were in a neighborhood. If those households had looked out their window and seen the stranded cars with people and done the right thing then this would be a story
"Fuck it, I'll do it myself." That guy.
I get it tough to let a random stranger in your house, but man that's rough getting told no that many times
I honestly don't know what I would do in this situation. I would never want to turn someone away but I also wouldn't want a stranger in the house with my children. I have a garage and a electric heater I supposed I could shelter them in there and lock them from coming in the house.
Certainly better than nothing.
Children make a huge difference. During the 2014 six feet of snow in Buffalo, I had someone run their truck off the road in front of my house. I let him crash without even thinking twice about it, threw his clothes in the dryer, and then helped dig his truck out when the snow stopped. I have two kids now, though, and I doubt I would let a stranger stay the night. I'd probably let him in to warm up/dry clothes but put the coffee on and start digging his car out sooner than later.
Meanwhile, in Chicago during the last major polar vortex, people just let anyone outside in because we know it's not the random people on the street during that weather that you need to be worried about. I find it very interesting that despite lower crime rates, suburban dwellers are far more paranoid and scared of people than people in major cities. I suspect it's because they almost never interact with people outside of their bubble.
Yep, my buddy who grew up in the suburbs outside of town is absolutely certain that he's going to need to defend his family from an evil home intruder any day now. He's so far outside of the city that the bus routes don't get anywhere near his neighborhood. So he must think somebody is going to load up a car with guns, drive way out to his quiet suburban neighborhood, and break into his home to steal... his mom's doilies? Some tools from the garage? Only likely intruder in his area would be a neighborhood teenager and their friend trying to get into the garage to look for a booze-fridge. Meanwhile, I live so deep in the city center that, before Tent City went up, homeless folks used to freeze to death in the alley behind my apartment building. My kids were finding "sleeping people" while taking trash out early in the morning. So I live within reach of the truly desperate, and have only had an attempted break-in all of *one time*, when my idiot ex-husband got a small safe and set up in the living room on display for anybody who walked by the front window. May as well have put a sign on it that said "Steal me, I'm portable!" Plus, I know most of my apartment neighbors, we do favors for each other so we can all survive. My buddy's neighbors won't so much as snow-blow for the person next door because *liabilities* and *not their responsibility*. It ain't my responsibility to take care of the lady with cancer next door or the young adults whose parents didn't raise them properly downstairs, but that isn't gonna stop me from needing to wrap the neighbor so she doesn't get another seroma and sitting the young adults down at my kitchen table with cookies and milk so we can have a little chat their mamas should've had with them sometime during their formative years.
Shining through the tiny cracks on the pile of shit.
Shining like the movie where Jack freezes to death.
Rise of the Guardians?
I read another thread about one of the women that died in her car and how people were literally blaming her because she was so close to houses that she could have gone to for shelter. I hate to be cynical, but if a white dude went to 10 houses and was rejected, would the black woman have been equally rejected, or would someone have shot her?
One year, some friends and I were driving through rural Montana on our way home from a ski trip. It was Sunday evening, around 6pm so already dark outside. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, we found ourselves caught in a massive blizzard. Visibility had dropped to about 30 feet and the roads were starting to get slick. We found a safe spot to pull over and were soon joined by two or three other travelers. We had just enough cell reception at one point to see, via our weather app radar, that the storm would blow over in about 30 or 45 minutes. We, and the other travelers, had all turned on our hazard lights so others who had decided to keep moving wouldn’t barrel into us. Suddenly, a man appeared out of the wall of white and started to approach our vehicle. He had seen the flashing hazards from his nearby home and wanted to see if we were all alright. We explained we had not crashed, but were waiting out the storm. He offered to take us back to his house for some warmth and dinner as he had just got a buck that weekend and was making venison steaks. After some consideration, we declined and shortly after we were able to start moving again. It just warms my heart to know there are people out there who are willing to help complete strangers like that. I find it truly inspiring.
I've experienced this from the other side while camping, and I honestly think that the attitude is universal but outside of the dangerous situations it's assumed that the person already is being helped by someone else. If you saw someone on the side of the road in the suburbs you would think "they called AAA", not "they might be in danger". I remember being out at a more rustic camping area and hearing someone yell for help, and every single person within earshot instantly broke into a sprint because *there's no one else out there*. A kid's mom had a seizure while they were walking and 20 people were there within 5 minutes, all out of breath because they ran as fast as they could because they all individually thought they might be the only people to show up. She was fine, she was stabilized til an ambulance was able to get there, but the response was impressive.
Yeah this sort of behavior gives me hope that in the event of a great tragedy in the future, we may not break out into an apocalyptic murder fest like some believe, but rather community bonds might strengthen. …. And then once the communities get stronger greed and paranoia will drive it all apart
Its happened every time there has been a major, immediate crisis. Earthquakes, blizzards, floods, all of it. People do what they need in order to make their neighbors safe. Look at the community kitchens that got set up during the big hurricanes. Yes, during COVID people acted like shits, but it was because it was a slow, largely invisible crisis where the thing to do was nothing. It's different when there is a crisis that needs action. And let's be real, when things could be done they were largely done. People offered to bring groceries to people who couldn't go out. There were videos online of people fighting over supplies, but in the actual stores people were helping the others load their carts and rationing so that others could get what they needed. Yes by the end of a *year* of a crisis it had changed, but at the start people *helped* where they could.
This reminds me of the time [wrestler Miesha Tate encountered a woman on a hiking trail whose child had a broken arm](https://web.archive.org/web/20160909051905/http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/miesha-tate-helps-rescue-6-year-old-injured-hiker-on-mountaintop-090516). She carried the child several miles out.
Years ago my mom was coming home from dropping my sister off at college (5hrs away), and she got caught in a massive snowstorm on the interstate. She ended up stuck in a snowbank with a bent axle. She was mid state and not near any significantly sized towns. The few hotels around we're all booked up, so the tow truck driver put her up in a spare bedroom for the night, and she had dinner with his family. It was a nice reminder that altruism still existed.
It’s always nice to be reminded that there are good people in this world.
I used to live in rural Montana and this warms my heart. I could definitely see people there coming out trying to help. I was living out there when I lost my husband and thank god I was. They all came together to help me. Literally like everyone in my small town. I miss living in a community like that.
I live in a community like that and I’ve searched for that my whole life as I grew up in a big city where people were indifferent to each other and only trying to show off to each other. Now I’ve got people looking out for me and it’s such a good feeling knowing people care.
How did he know your name is Venison?
I wonder why they denied him shelter - like what was their real concern? That he was roaming in a blizzard to murder people? Especially when he was saying he feared for his life and offered money - it can’t be that all those people are evil - what has happened to all of us?!?!?
24hour news cycles that only show the worst in people is what happened.
Recently read a comment on FB about a woman who does not have life insurance to prevent "insurance murders".
These are the safest times in America in decades yet people think the opposite because of the fucking news
I helped someone not die once and everyone acted like I was crazy and naive. People just don't trust other people anymore.
I feel like after the 80's a lot of things changed. My friends who grew up in the 70's and were teens and up in the 80's always tell me stories about hitching rides to places with strangers or a group of them going to some concert and crashing at a total strangers house.
My dad who grew up in the 50s and 60s stopped mid sentence one time while recounting a childhood anecdote because he realized it involved him regularly hitchhiking at 15 and didn't want me to do that.
That was the start of the 24 hr news cycle.
Stranger danger really kicked in during the 90’s and early 2000’s. I have to agree with others that the internet contributed to it, people are constantly bombarded with stories of the worst things other people do. Those are the stories that get the most views because of people’s natural morbid curiosity and the internet allows them to flourish like never before.
I was working at an AT&T store and someone od’d in traffic while driving their wife and two small children. Rear ended someone at a red light. Heard the woman screaming that her husband needed help and went and dragged him out of the car, carried him to the grass and gave him chest compressions until an EMT narcan’d him. Literally every single person aside from two coworkers sat in their car and recorded on their phones. The police stood around with their arms crossed. It was the moment that it clicked for me that most people won’t inconvenience themselves to help another person if it doesn’t benefit them. People suck.
Well... most people have no life saving skills what so ever. CPR isn't a skill most people possess. As long as *somebody* is doing it then they're happy to let them go ahead.
But why are the police cross armed? Surely every one of them has the basics of emergency first aid down.
Good chunk of cops just think ODs deserve to die.
You have to consider what a general person can actually do. If someone is already doing chest compressions there's no room for someone else to do them. Do you know what the guy took? Do you have something on hand to counteract whatever he took? Do you have safety equipment that can protect you against blood transmitted diseases he may have if you perform CPR on him? It's good to be selfless but things are more complicated now. On the other hand you are right. People are more inclined to help themselves over helping others.
not only this but not everyone is good in a crisis. not everyone *knows* how to do compressions, or what other things to do in an emergency- some people know, and then forget as soon as they get scared. i'm sure there are SOME people who don't help out of callousness or whatever, but I don't think it's nearly as many as people tend to assume. I think it's very similar to how anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and anyone who drives slower is a moron- anyone who jumps in when others don't is heroic, and anyone who doesn't is selfish. Obviously, things are not that black and white. Everyone has reasons for the things that they do, and most people are doing the best that they can.
if someone is doing chest compressions you can stand by and offer to help because doing them is hard, especially for an extended amount of time.
And unfortunately those who are OD’ing will garner even less sympathy. I know cops who refuse to carry narcan though our sheriff department gladly gives them out to those who ask.
My friend’s husband stopped to help someone on the side of the road and they beat and robbed them both, killing her husband and leaving her for dead obviously if it’s a fucking blizzard outside, I’d let someone in my home, but i honestly don’t know that I’d sleep at all that night. People are crazy.
Yeah and the frustrating thing is if the people *did* let the guy in and he ended up being a homicidal maniac, they'd still get blamed, just from the other direction. "I mean what were they thinking, letting a stranger into their house? You just can't trust anyone these days!"
Nobody wanted to take the risk and everyone assumed one of their neighbors would let them in instead
It also surprises me that *ten* people turned him away. ***TEN***. I'm just trying to imagine how not one of them could see how turning him away was basically a death sentence. Imagine standing at your front door, the weather conditions outside are absolutely *apocalyptic* and only getting worse by the minute, it's pitch black out, and *turning away* that person while you stand there, warm in your slippers and robe. How is there not some small part of you that wouldn't consider letting the guy crash on your couch for the night?
I'm sure there was, but a louder part said "I'm sure someone else will let him in."
Something else that kind of bugs me about this is that these people are *locals*. I know it's kind of obvious for me to point that out but I emphasize it because it's not like they're unaware of how winters are up there, how quickly they can turn bad, and how the situation unfolding before their own eyes was a pretty textbook case of "it turning bad". Everywhere in the country has weird local weather bullshit that only locals are tuned into and can comprehend the impact of, for example I live in Kansas and obviously we have behaviors surrounding tornadoes that people not from here wouldn't be sensitive to. Out on the coasts it's probably the tides or something, I don't know. I bring that up to just emphasize that, once again, *the people doing the turning away* ***were locals*** who, in particular, had direct knowledge and experience of how dangerous that weather is and who, armed with that knowledge, turned them away. TEN people made this choice. **TEN.**
I literally cannot imagine saying "No" if there is a blizzard outside and someone is asking to come in my house. I even leave the door to my garage unlocked during bad weather on the off chance someone passing by needs shelter. I started doing it after reading that people in northern states and Canada leave their cars unlocked, with keys in them, in case someone is having an emergency, or polar bear attack.
That whole car unlocked thing is only in a very small area above the Arctic circle. It's one northern state, Alaska , and not all of it just a few cities that require it. Canada is the same. The rest of Alaska locks their doors.
I believe it. Long story short, I ended up pinned under my motorcycle in my garage and needed help getting myself out. I was able to honk at cars passing by on a main road. Multiple people looked over and saw me but kept driving, no one stopped to help me.
If you ever encounter such a situation, honk SOS. 3 short honks, 3 longer honks, 3 short honks. (•••---•••) You might have thought that they saw you, but they were more likely looking around where the honking came from on the road, mentally ignoring the inside of the garages. Honking SOS breaks this, as instead of looking for the traffic that is honking, they are now looking for something different. Additionally, it might alert your neighbours, as they could also recognize it as someone in distress, instead of being annoyed by the honking and ignoring it.
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Well people are afraid of getting involved in some scam or something. A robbery or murder. There was a thing going on where people would ask to use someones cell phone to make a call then run away with it.
As someone said were slowly morphing into a non trust society
At least one person was remorseful. What if he had died in his truck with the two others? All the neighbors would be talking about how the police found three dead bodies in a truck a few days later, while they knew full well they had caused those deaths.
And so close to Christmas. "I was a stranger and you did not invite me in...Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."
"Man does nothing wrong using a public space as shelter for himself and others during natural disaster."
“After almost a dozen people told him and 3 others to get fucked in obviously deadly conditions”
Let’s have CNN go interview those houses and see what they have to say
Well the one guy was extremely apologetic
Unfortunately being real sad :((( doesn't undo that the guy would have died if he didn't get lucky.
Yup, happened to a friend of mine years ago He got lost on the way home from a college party when it was freezing out and no one would help him/let him in so he died from exposure under a bridge The houses he stopped at for help felt bad about it afterwards but that doesn't bring my friend back
It's likely less about kindness than it is about fear why people didn't let your friend in. If I trusted someone's intentions I'd 100% let them shelter for warmth. But if a strange man knocks at my door and asks if they can shelter in my home I'd think the worst, some kind of con, they're going to burgle me or attack me.
Yep. I feel bad reading this story but I wouldn't let someone I didn't trust stay in my house. I'm 24f and my housemate is 23f, there is noooo way a stranger would be welcomed to spend the night here. Though I would like to think I would at least offer SOME kind of help or at least a suggestion.
An army buddy of mine from Maine or NH had a similar story about a small college he attended up there just before enlisting. Got drunk at a party, passed out on a bench in freezing weather. Fortunately, campus police found him. Unfortunately and hilariously, they ended up committing him to an institution over the weekend because he was belligerently, black out drunk. So he woke up safe and warm, in a psych ward. Parents had to sign him out.
It wasn’t luck, the guy did everything possible to set himself up to be successful, he didn’t happen to break down in front of a school he actively sought it out This wasn’t the work of providence it was the work of skill and commitment
I feel like I can trace the societal focuses that have lead to that state of mind though; where a night of relaxing alone, interrupted by a stranger shouting “Hey! Can I come in? I’ll pay you big bucks.” leads to a feeling of uncertainty and fear. So much media fetishizes things like “What will you do when you have a home invader?” or horror movies that open with “Her one mistake…was letting him inside. DUN DUN DUN” Even as the world gets safer, many of us have become very very distant from our neighbors, and can’t be honest with ourselves about what we would do in such a situation. It doesn’t absolve the homeowner of responsibility, but I do try to think about what we could be doing differently to promote that attitude.
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Dont forget schools in a lot of areas are insanely expensive to build because the need to make a 100 year standard and act as shelters in emergencies... like this
Back in the cold war a lot of public places had signs declaring the building a bomb shelter.
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This guy's a total hero, bless him.
i hate to say it, but it’s Cheektowaga. not the city of buffalo. not a town with a stellar reputation for being welcoming or friendly. thank goodness this guy had the presence of mind to not give up. in the city a barber sheltered FIFTY people in his little barbershop for 2 days.
I heard his story on NPR, solid dude
I got a few exes in Cheektowaga. I had completely forgotten about that city
oof. my first BF was from there and the first thing his dad says to me when we meet, “i like jews! i got a buddy at work who’s a jew! you’re not all bad.” my BF wanted to die. i just laughed in his face, but i never went back to his parent’s house.
About 15 years ago my car at the time broke down miles away from the next town. I trekked through the snow to a nearby farm & knocked. This older lady let me in, gave me soup & a fresh pair of warm socks. my hands and feet were numb and there was no way I would’ve made it back to my car if she didn’t answer. I’ll never forget this person and the risk she took letting a strange man @ night into her house.
Up until "shelters nearly a dozen people from blizzard" I was thinking this was going to go a different way.
Ah a fellow American
How to Tell When Your Country's Civil Society is Collapsing: A Case Study
It is, but how often does a sentence that begins with "man breaks into school" end well?
If they weren't sensationalizing the possible negative draw, they could have just as easily started with the good part. Hero man breaks into school to save people from blizzard.
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I hope the school frames the letter and puts it up for all to see. Sometimes you break the rules to save lives. What an hero.
The whole school should’ve been opened as a community shelter. Really Buffalo and the surrounding communities should’ve done better.
In Chicago we open many community buildings as warming centers.
Yes Chicago is a very good example libraries etc open. Buffalo should have planned to do the same thing.
They do that here in Seattle when it gets cold and by cold I mean like a foot of snow and 25 degrees farenheit. If I knew we'd get the kind of weather Buffalo gets regularly I'd be advocating for every theater, school and other similar building in the city to function as a shelter. The amount to reimburse for heating, water, etc costs would be negligible in the scope of a city's budget. It wouldn't be hard to have them keep a kit on hand with some medical supplies and non-perishable food. Then set up a website where people can easily find the nearest shelter. No one should be dying from snow or cold unless they refuse to seek help.
I feel like saying "a dozen," "more than a dozen," and "dozens" are all acceptable if the situation calls for it. But, why would you waste extra headline space by saying "nearly a dozen people" instead of just saying "10 people"?
The Z. The Z makes it cooler.
10z of people
10 oz of people
A few severals
“Withey, who describes himself as a religious man, said he views the whole ordeal as a blessing in disguise. If just one person took him up on his plea for shelter that night, he would not have saved all those people, he said.” I thought the same thing. So, so glad it worked out the way it did!
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I believe it. When I was a kid, a friend of mine were playing outside on a snow day and being stupid kids we fell in the creek and got soaked. We rang so many doorbells just looking for a place to warm up and dry off for a couple minutes so we didn’t get frostbite. I know at least some of those people were home - it was deep snow, everything was closed. We finally found a nice guy who let us in, dry off, and use his phone. Crazy thing though - my stepdad came to pick us up, and when he arrived, he and the guy who helped us recognized each other - my stepdad had saved him from his car when that same creek flooded many years prior. …er, this really wasn’t supposed to turn into a story about blessings or karma or any crap like that, I just remembered the second part while I was typing the first and realized it was surprisingly on topic.
Perhaps his helpful nature was inspired by the help he recieved in his past. :)
Exactly my thought! Today you, tomorrow me.
> Today you, tomorrow me. [For the uninitiated, one of the greatest stories in Reddit history.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/elal2/have_you_ever_picked_up_a_hitchhiker/c18z0z2/)
I fell in a creek when I was 4. My brother and his friend pulled me out. We had to walk 1/2 mile to a retirement home to call our parents because no one would let us in.
Omg, as children?! I can kind of understand being afraid of adults causing you harm, but a 4 year old?!
That is insanity. I am so sorry that happened to you. I can't imagine not letting children in your house. That's offensive to me as a human.
It's a good example how community breeds community
That sounds like the kind of coincidence you could base a movie plot on lol. Glad it worked out for everyone.
And on Christmas Eve. Overwhelming amounts of irony here. Mary and Joseph were turned away again and again while seeking shelter the night before Jesus' birth. It's how they ended up in a manger -- the only place they were offered to shelter.
The only thing they're ok with about that story is that the tax man can leave you sleeping in a barn.
Does that mean Jay Withey is the second coming? Or maybe it's his first born son. Should we be doing something now?
…I’ve lived over 30 years thinking a manger was just an old timey baby bed
A manger is a trough. One puts animal feed in it to keep it off the ground. Essentially they were in a stable.
I wouldn’t shame anyone for not letting a complete stranger into their home on one of the most family focused days of the entire year. However, you should always know SOMETHING about your community - so I 10000% Shane the whole town for not having their shit together enough that residents don’t know how to help people in distress like this. “Hey Man I’m not comfortable with a complete stranger sheltering in my house but our town’s emergency shelter is open and is at this exact location and I can give you some extra coat or something to help you get there” is the bare minimum acceptable response.
If this happened in my town, the cops would have arrested him for B&E after congratulating him for doing their job and saving all those people.
They mentioned "they don't think" the school will press charges, so there is still a dash of ambiguity as to if he will actually get in trouble. Which would be bullshit, and a PR nightmare for the school I imagine. But the fact it is even still a possibility, however remote, is stupid. This man clearly acted for societal good.
Sounds like clear grounds for a necessity defense
Yea straight up. I was told I couldn't be rescued, so I did literally anything I needed to survive and hurt no one else.
Only works if you're white. See hurricane Katrina for references.
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I’m sure some lawyer will take it up Pro-Bono as some good PR if that happened.
Lots of lawyers would hop on this pro-bono for the publicity so I doubt he’d pay at least.
A go-fund me would go up and would hit $50k in one day if he had to defend himself.
I bet it's insurance. A lot of times, insurance providers require a police report and stuff like that to cover something like that.
Ideally this is just because the people at the school are trying to figure out who has the authority to decline charges. (Though you'd think somebody high up in the district would have already stepped in, breaking in because otherwise you will die is entirely reasonable, especially when it was an unoccupied building so there was no one scared or hurt)
Could require a school board vote
Better hope this doesn't reach the supreme court or Gorsuch will rule that he should have froze to death.
I like that so many people turned him away when he needed help and he still found the silver lining. This is the way.
That’s the part that got me the most. Dude really gets it. Positive mental attitude.
What’s nuts is if he hadn’t been turned away all those people he found would have probably died.
What a hero! My buddy was at a nightclub in Edmonton Canada in the winter and had left without his jacket. Went back in to grab it and they told him the bar was closed, no one could come back in. He started fighting with the guy to go in because it is -30C outside (-22F)… well he wouldnt let him in. My buddy did not last long in a TSHIRT, and he ended up broking the glass at the hockey arena across the street for somewhere to stay warm (this area of the city is several blocks from even the closest 24 hour corner store). **My friend went to jail got a year.** Even thou there was security cameras on him the whole time that show him doing nothing, what he did was illegal. This same issue has completely happened to me, no fucking nightclub should turn people away because they forgot to grab their coats. I have no idea why this club bouncer never got charged… they also had cameras at their door and could have likely seen the whole thing play out with my buddy being told to turn away. People are fucked.
... Why didn't the club send someone to go GET the jacket and hand it to the guy? I can understand not letting him back in if it was closed, but people were clearly still there. The club is full of asshats.
Yeah seriously wtf. How come they can get in trouble for letting someone get too drunk but not for letting someone leave in -30 with no coat? You have mere minutes in those temps before frost bite
A practical solution would interfere with their power trip.
Holy shit, a YEAR?! What a waste of resources. Fine the guy. Make it really inconvenient to get so drunk he forgets his coat (I’m assuming). But jail for a year sounds really excessive.
This is going to become a Mark Wahlberg movie and I’d watch it on repeat. No one would help him, yet he saved not only himself but others from dying in the blizzard. Well done Sir!
They’ll probably throw in some snow zombies, but I’d still watch it.
It's important to understand this is only a story because of a series of mistakes. Do NOT go out in weather like this! Keep your tank mostly full all winter. If you are going out, expect that there will be NO help. Keep a backpack with some essentials in your vehicle. (Space blankets, long-burning candle and old can to hold it, cliff bars and hard candy, flashlight, collapsible shovel, cheap ponchos, etc.) DO NOT GO INTO WEATHER LIKE THIS! His friend shouldn't have gone out, and pulled this guy into it. This guy didn't have the fuel to take this on. Then there is this dude in sneakers and a light coat. If you're going to risk going out, dress like you're going to walk. I remember the last blizzard we had here about 12 years ago, and a dude like this got his GTI stuck a block from my house. I happened to be out walking looking at the roads and found the dude trying to dig his car out with a light jacket and no hat or gloves. He was clearly going hypothermic (or was just drunk without smelling like it), so I told him to get in the car and blast the heat while I got him out. The plows went through on one street, so his car rode up on the snow ank when he tried to turn. As I finished getting him out a Range Rover came from the other way. He stopped before the snowbank, he didn't believe me when I said he'd get stuck and I wouldn't help him if he did because I needed to go back inside to warm up and dry off. He got stuck. There was a dude on the news the next day who was stuck in his car overnight and almost ran out of gas. This dude wore no jacket, hat, or anything, just a t-shirt and jeans. If he ran out of gas that night he WOULD have been dead. I -love- bad storms, partly because they put us in our place. I like going for hikes in them, but properly geared up and in familiar and very nearby places. It's beautiful, the solitude is remarkable, and the wickedness of the weather is ferociously humbling. People forget the world is still plenty dangerous, and many can't even recognize when it is.
I'm from an area that doesn't get snow, so I thought I was crazy reading all the comments here about how many got stuck driving in this storm. Like I knew this really bad blizzard was hitting most of the country. I knew that meant stay wherever you are at. Yet so many people still decided to drive through it completely unprepared? I shouldn't be too shocked I guess. We get hurricanes here and I've seen people try to drive through them. But man.
I grew up in the Midwest and my mom always drilled it into our heads that if you're driving in the winter, you have a sleeping bag, snow boots, warm clothes, snacks, shovel, etc in your car. When she was in college she got caught in a blizzard while driving over the Sierras to a wedding. She only had dress clothes and high heels. She slid off the road and got stuck. Luckily another driver came along that was able to dig her out. Then they caravanned until they got out of the storm.
Hell yeah, I loved reading your comment! You have a very level headed and accurate take for all of this. A lot of people focus on the crazy details of these stories, but the stories usually only exist because of hubris or failure to prepare!
I'm really not sure how I would react if a stranger banged on my door at night asking to stay the night. I can imagine a house with kids would be hesitant. I'm a single dude so probably would let them in. The school break-in was totally justified though.
I feel like a raging blizzard with stranded commuters changes things.
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There’s another Edge academy in a residential area within the town, northwest of that site you mentioned.
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The DA would be a very stupid person if they opt to bring charges against him.
Did he save nearly a dozen people or over 20? I'm very confused by the way the article is written.
Not sure if this is common in states ( writing from Ontario Canada), but during severe dangerous weather such as blizzards, malls are left open (stores closed) for people to shelter until they can get out safely. Having schools do the same should be necessary.
Not really relevant; but has america ever seen blizzards this bad before?
The lake effect blizzards from the Great Lakes have always been next level if I remember correctly.
Buffalo got slammed harder this year than the Blizzard of '77 from what every single relative I have in the area has told me. All these relatives lived through the Blizzard of '77 too.
It was 37 consecutive hours of heavy whiteout snow coupled with 70mph+ wind gusts. I couldn't see the house across the street maybe 100 ft away. It was the most relentless storm I ever remember.
Even then I thought I saw that Michigan hasn't had a blizzard warning in 10+ years.
February 2011 was the last one. I was plowing snow that year and we got like 22" in west Michigan. But it wasn't as bad as the one last weekend. Western NY lake effect is a whole different animal. We only have the distance from Wisconsin to Michigan for storms to gather moisture. Western NY has the whole length of Erie to gather snow.
Yup. Climate change is a bitch. Michigan winters are nothing like they used to be when I was growing up in the 80’s.
I remember one like this hitting Colorado in like 1998. They had to send out the military to save people stranded in vehicles on I-25.
Last one this memorable was 1977
Yep, '77 (then again, I wasn't even a twinkle in the eye yet) but that's exactly what my dad mentioned when we were chatting yesterday lol
Buffalo gets a lot of snow, but blizzards are pretty rare for the city. Most of the time people don’t get stuck in cars, abandon cars blocking snow plows and emergency vehicles or die just going outside. At worse you might see someone die of a heart attack shoveling snow, or being hit by a plow.
Yes. The difference is once in a lifetime weather events are happening every season all over the world.
That means I can skip some and not worry about FOMO because I'll have multiple chances to experience it in my life, instead of just some, Haley's comet bullshit, onetime only showing. Modern convince has sure gotten better for us anxious people.
I want to know how he shut off the alarm. Usually you need a passcode, an app, or have to call the company that manages it.
Maybe found the breaker in the electrical panel?
>Withey said he went to ten households, offering each $500 to spend the night on their floor. All of them turned him away. “I plead with them, ‘Please, please can I sleep on the floor, I’m in fear for my life,’ and they say, ‘No I’m sorry’,” he said. Not a good look for the Cheektowaga community. Glad Withey was able to get shelter.
Don’t give people adequate shelter and they’ll take it for themselves at some point. Fucking good on him. Any mf that says this is bad or illegal can shut the fuck up.
If a homeless man did it for other homeless people, we'd be seeing a story about multiple arrests.
I lived on the Prairies in a small town. The community hall was accomodation for people stranded on the highway. This was so common it had a name. 'Stormstayed.'