What’s next? Cleaning up after Buffalo’s surprise tornado

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Now that the shock of Monday’s surprise tornado in Buffalo is wearing off, people in the West Village are trying to figure out what to do next.

Buffalo Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski lives in the historic West Village where the EF-1 tornado hit, and said people are running into trouble with insurance policies, as a tornado has not hit the city of Buffalo since 1950.

“As you can imagine, a lot of the residents that I represent and that my neighbors that live around me are saying, ‘we’re calling our insurance companies and we’re getting the runaround. They’re saying that’s not covered in our policy,’ and they’re hitting a hang up,” said Nowakowski. “So a lot of it now is trying to figure out in the aftermath what do residents qualify for [after] a tornado, making sure that we can work through some of those nuances so they can get any relief.”

He said residents can call his office at 716-851-4138 to leave their information in case the city secures state or federal aid.

In addition, many century-old trees that lined the streets came down in the winds or had to be removed for safety in the aftermath. Nowakowski said he will be connecting with the city forester to make a plan for rebuilding so that future generations can enjoy the character tree-lined streets bring to a community like the West Village.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said three homes reported significant roofing damages, more than a dozen electrical lines were impacted in some way shape or form and nine people reported chimney issues following the tornado.

Damage estimates at this time sit around $2.5 million — a number Brown expects to climb.

If city residents have debris on their property they need picked up, they’re asked to bring it to the curb, where it will be picked up between now and Saturday.