On Friday, as we realized this was truly going to be a once in a generation snow storm, pleas for assistance emerged online: to help locate a loved one; in need of infant formula; stuck in a vehicle; elderly parent home alone; no ability to reach emergency services – a hive of activity sprung up on social media.
Warm and comfortable, I sat helpless on my couch, unable to tear myself away from texting friends and family, listening to the news and weather, and refreshing my social media channels.
I sat there hour after hour just scrolling through the metaverse. They call this action “doom scrolling.” Cries for help began to overwhelm my feeds.
Mr. Rogers said, when I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Almost as soon as the posts appeared, people from every corner of the community started to respond – to help organize, to try and connect loved ones, to share resources, and post contact information for government sites.
People used sites like Next Door and Reddit: Buffalo Blizzard Mega Thread 2022 to connect. Soon new Facebook Groups were formed, like Blizzard 2022 which now has more than 60k members.
Anonymous moderators created threads and organized people sometimes block by block, because that was as far as people could travel. Snow mobile groups formed to attempt citizen rescues. I read a story of a family trapped in a car, people were able to locate them and bring them to safety. I refreshed the post, and went back to check, just to make they were ok.
I walked outside to briefly let the dogs out, a seagull was down on the ground not moving. After the dogs were safely secured, I grabbed the frozen gull, wrapped him close to me and made a cove under my porch with some burlap from the garage. Nestled in out of the wind, I said a silent prayer that it was enough.
When I went back inside, I joined that Facebook group. The first post I saw was a woman who happend to be just a few blocks from me. She was afraid she would run out of dog food and needed a special kind because her pet had an allergy. The post was flooded with friendly advice, however, it just so happened that my dog had the same allergy, and I had an extra bag.
We coordinated on messenger, the next morning there was a break in the storm. She and her boyfriend were able to safely walk to my house, and as we lifted the 30lbs bag over a 4’ drift, I could see relief. It was one small gesture. I was no longer just scrolling, I was a helper.
My next door neighbors were out, they needed gas. I had a full can that I did not need, so I handed that over another bank of snow. As my uncle, who was in from Austin TX for the holiday, was hand shoveling my driveway, three neighbors (more helpers) with snow blowers came over and cleared the apron.
It reminded me of a poem by Emily Dickinson:
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
I have to believe that by the end of this tragedy, millions of small acts will have occurred. And yet, I know that as the days pass there will be more stories that emerge on my social feeds of the many people who were not as lucky as I was, who experienced truly horrific circumstances. My heart breaks for them, I know there are thousands of hearts breaking around our community, but there are also people working hard to ease the aching just the smallest bit.
Here’s a shout out to all the helpers for truly making this the City of Good Neighbors.
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