A Buffalo grandmother was found dead just a few hundred feet from her home after she decided to brave a record-breaking storm to gather supplies.
Casey Maccarone said her mother, Monique Alexander, 52, left their home on Christmas Eve saying she would be ‘right back.’
But after a few hours, Maccarone still had not heard from her mother and grew increasingly worried.
That is when she reached out to other Buffalo residents online — and found out her mother did not make it. Her body was later recovered just a few hundred feet from their home.
Alexander is now among the more than three dozen victims of the brutal winter storm that has devastated the northern New York city, leaving tens of thousands of without power and stranding residents inside their homes and cars.
Monique Alexander, 52, decided to brave a devastating winter blizzard on Christmas Eve when she died in the storm
Maccarone told CNN she was already feeling anxious watching the news about school and business closures when her mother told her she wanted to go out at around 3pm on Christmas Eve.
Alexander did not share where she was going, but Maccarone assumed she was trying to get to the stores before they closed.’
She had braved storms before and walked everywhere, Maccarone shared.
‘She always felt like Superwoman and invincible, so I’m assuming that she just thought she could handle the conditions,’ she said, adding she could never ‘really tell my mom anything — she’s going to do what she wants to do.
‘I’m assuming she thought she was strong enough for it.’
But as the hours ticked by, Maccarone became increasingly worried about her mother.
‘We were waiting for her to come home,’ she said of herself and her children, who have been living with Alexander since August.
Eventually, she said, she decided to ask others in a community Facebook group whether they had seen her mother.
About 15 minutes later, CNN reports, a stranger messaged her and described her mother’s coat and blue jeans.
Maccarone said she confirmed to the man that that was her mother, and asked him where he had seen her.
He instead asked, ‘Can I call you,’ and immediately broke down into tears on a videochat.
The stranger told Maccarone he had been in the storm when he saw her mother in the snow, and moved her body under the awning of a business where she would not be buried in the deep slush.
‘I knew something was wrong right away,’ Maccarone said. ‘So I kind of accepted it instantly, but it’s hard knowing she was outside for so long, too, because there were no emergency responders allowed to come inside’ amid a city-wide travel ban.
Members of the National Guard were later able to retrieve Alexander’s body, just a few hundred feet from their home.
Maccarone said the family lost its rock, and someone they could call on for everything.
‘My kids, they lost their grandmother — and that was her most important role in her life, being a good grandmother,’ Maccarone said.
‘And now, they just have memories.’
Alexander’s body was found by National Guard crews just a few hundred feet from her house. Crews are pictured here going door to door to check on residents
A loader makes its way along South Park Avenue to assist with the mammoth clean up
Death toll from deadly storm rises to nearly 40 in upstate New York county
Alexander is among the nearly 40 residents who have died in the brutal winter storm, which dumped nearly 100 inches of snow on the city.
Officials announced on Wednesday that the death toll had risen to 37, of whom 17 were found dead outside, nine were in a home with no heat, four died from heart attacks while trying to shovel the heavy snow and three were from a delay in emergency services, USA Today reports.
A majority of the deaths, 29 of the 37, were within the Buffalo city limits itself, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference Wednesday night, while seven others were in the suburbs and one was unknown.
He noted that there are still multiple unidentified bodies, with the potential for the death toll to rise in the coming days as National Guard troops go door-to-door to check on those who were stuck inside their homes.
‘It’s a horrible storm with too many deaths,’ Poloncarz said, as he praised first responders, without whom, he said, ‘more people would have died.’
Among the dead are William ‘Romello’ Clay, 56, who was found lying face down in the snow at the intersection of Bailey and Kensington Avenue on Christmas Eve.
He had earlier been reported missing at around midnight on December 23, after leaving his home in the treacherous winter conditions to get to a store, loved ones have said.
They claimed online that he my not have been on his medication when he left the home.
A 22-year old woman, Anndel Taylor, also died over the holiday weekend after spending 18 hours in her car while trying to wait out a historic snowstorm.
Among the victims of the brutal storm are William ‘Romello’ Clay, 56, who was found lying face down in the snow, and Anndel Taylor, 22, who spent 18 hours in her car while trying to wait out the storm
The student nurse had sent videos to her family as she waited, showing the snow piling up outside her car.
She also texted them, sharing her frustration at emergency services who left her on hold for extended periods of time.
At 6.39pm, she wrote: ‘I’m still here, been here since 3. The car I’m driving, muffler damn near on the ground already, then snow up to the tires… I’m mad irritated.’
Two hours later, a relative checked in with Taylor on the group chat again, who responded to say she was ‘unfortunately’ still stranded and would likely have to spend the night.
She told them she had heating, adding: ‘It looks like I’m going to sleep here. I don’t know how long this gas will last. I’m livid bro my door damn near covered [sic].’
It was then that her family started panicking, questioning if the police had really been ‘on their way for two hours’.
‘Can no one get you?’ her sister asked.
Taylor was told police had attempted to rescue her, but got stuck on the way. At that stage she had been on hold again to authorities for 22 minutes.
Her sister said: ‘Unprepared in a state known for it!’
At 8.59pm she told her siblings she was still on hold and was waiting to be connected to the fire department.
‘All might be out, they said they’re sending someone,’ she wrote at 9.09pm. She said if nobody had come by 11pm she’d consider getting out on her own.
‘I swing it open every now and then when the wind stops, but just now it was mad hard for me to get it open.
At 9.37pm she sent a message which read: ‘They don’t gaf (give a f**k) man. I’m talking to them now so I know how to go about the night… If the car stay running in them morning I’m going to walk, snow at my thighs.
‘Walk when I wake up,’ she wrote at 11.56pm. Her family told her to go to sleep and contact them when she woke up.
She later sent another photo showing the snow had ‘reached my stomach line’. It was her final message
Taylor’s body was ultimately found at 9pm on Christmas Eve, but she was not removed from her car until 7pm on Christmas Day.
Anndel Taylor repeatedly reassured her family help was on the way after her vehicle was stranded in snow Friday afternoon on her way home from work
