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Chautauqua County cleaning up from first lake effect snow of the season

chauplow
FILE
/
Chautauqua County Department of Public Facilities
Chautauqua County plow at work.

While the bulk of the Thanksgiving weekend snowstorm has left the region -- one of the hardest hit areas Chautauqua County is in the process of cleaning up from the nearly four feet of snow that blanketed portions of the county.

While there were no storm-related human fatalities and only a few minor accidents -- a cow farm in Arkwright suffered significant damage when its barn roof collapsed and killed several cows while injuring others.

The Arkwright barn collapse aside, County Executive PJ Wendel said he was proud of the way crews handled the storm.

"It's been a very unique storm. Initially it really hit on Thanksgiving evening into Friday and Saturday," said Wendel. "It was hitting mostly to the west and north of the Jamestown area. So towns like Mina, French Creek, Sherman were getting hit pretty hard. As well as towns to the north.

Wendel said there were no widespread power outages. One woman was trapped along Route 5 on Friday as she was bound for Cleveland for heart surgery. The New York State Police transported her to Jamestown where she caught a flight to Cleveland.

"Moving forward what we want to remind everybody is that this is winter, we're here. It came to us fast and furious, but we've been a little spoiled maybe in that last couple years that we haven't had a significant snow event such as this," he said. "We ranged anywhere from six inches to a foot in some areas, to over four feet."

A lake effect snow warning for Chautauqua County remains in place until 7 p.m. Tuesday.