Memorable Calls

by Mark Scott

The night of the November 2000 snowstorm was a 20-hour air shift at WBFO for me, the longest one I've ever done. John and Sarah Loder, good friends of the station who help out during membership drives and come to our events, called us. John said that his wife was stuck on the 190 and he wanted to get a message to her. Her cell phone must have been working later on, because she called to say that she got off the 190, so if you were heading north on the 190 after Hamburg Street, you could find a way off the expressway. She called again later to say that she had abandoned her car and walked home.

I really felt for the people who were on the mainline thruway. Some talked about how the thruway authorities radio station didn't have information. In fact, a commercial on it said, The Buffalo Area is a Winter Wonderland! and that just raised their ire. At 9:00 on Tuesday morning, the last time I took calls, they were still waiting.

Those calls were memorable. I recall one sarcastic caller giving out thank-you's to drivers, municipalities, police officers who he felt had dropped the ball. I know the police were out doing their best, but a lot of people said they didn't see police officers. They did give credit to firefighters for helping people, especially in the city and the suburbs. Another call came from California, our first internet call. We started streaming our signal on the internet just this summer, so that had never happened before on one of our call-in shows, where someone called from outside our area to say that they were listening. He said it was 65 degrees in California, so I made a big deal about that. Another Californian was passing through. It was his first exposure to significant snow, so he provided levity. It's interesting: it had an impact on his life for a few hours, and I'll never meet him.

It's weird that you connect with people that night, at a very deep level. They were stuck, they were cold, there were no prospects of moving any time soon, and they were able to at least connect with us at the radio station and their fellow drivers who were in similar circumstances. They knew they weren't alone.