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After knocking on more than a dozen doors to ask for a place to shelter from the historic snowstorm that hit the Buffalo area last week, Jay Withey trotted to his truck and broke the bad news.
No one had agreed to let him and another stranded man spend the night of December 23 at their homes in Cheektowaga, NY as the storm made travel impossible.
Resigned, the men spent the night in the truck and brought in a stranded woman. They used up valuable fuel to maintain the heater while the nighttime temperature averaged 9 degrees.
In the morning Withey wasn’t sure how much longer the women could go without food and water.
“I look at a map on my phone and there’s a school nearby,” Withey, 27, said in an interview with The Washington Post on Friday. He said to the woman, “‘I’m breaking into this school. I know it’s hot in there, I know there’s a bathroom, and I bet there’s food.’”
His desperate decision may have saved dozens of lives during a storm that stranded hundreds of people in a major metropolitan area that was still assessing the damage more than a week later.
Outside Cheektowaga High School, EDGE Academy, the woman feared they would get in trouble for breaking in. Withey thought he’d have to explain his decision to school officials and authorities later, but he argued it was the trio’s best chance of surviving the blizzard. The three finally got into the building after Withey smashed a side window with a brake block he found in his truck.
After the two strangers settled inside, Withey went to other cars stranded nearby and offered their occupants a place to sleep.
“I didn’t want anyone else to suffer,” Withey said. “I was empowered to save quite a number of people. I have as many people as possible.”
By the end of the weekend, Withey had been sheltering about two dozen strangers, including children and two dogs. He left a handwritten note explaining the burglary.
It read: “Whoever it may concern I am terribly sorry for breaking the school window and breaking into the kitchen. Got stuck at 8pm on Friday sleeping in my truck with two strangers just trying not to die. 7 elderly people were also stuck and ran out of fuel. I had to do it to save everyone and get them shelter, food and a bathroom. Merry Christmas – Jay.”
Like Withey, hundreds of people were stranded in their cars and homes when the snowstorm hit western New York, triggering a travel ban, upending vacation plans and prompting criticism of the area’s leaders.
The blizzard — Buffalo’s deadliest disaster in a decade — has claimed at least 39 lives in Erie County, a number authorities say is expected to rise as emergency responders gain access to other areas in the coming days. The majority of those killed were black.
But as the city dug itself out of the snow, tales of strangers lending a hand kept cropping up.
DeMario Johnson and his mother, Addie Johnson, were also stranded near the Cheektowaga school. They were on their way to a relative’s home on December 23 – fleeing Addie Johnson’s home without power – when their car got stuck in the mud, DeMario Johnson, 50, told The Post.
The storm made it impossible for them to be rescued, rescue workers said, so she and Addie’s 3-year-old Shih Tzu, DJ, spent the night in their car.
“Whoever it may concern, I am terribly sorry for breaking the school window and breaking into the kitchen. Got stuck at 8pm on Friday sleeping in my truck with two strangers just trying not to die. 7 elderly people were also stuck and ran out of fuel. I had to do it to save everyone and get them shelter, food and a bathroom. Merry Christmas – Jay.”
When Withey found them on Dec. 24, Addie Johnson, 71, didn’t think they would make it out of the blizzard alive, her son told the Post.
Withey said he plans to use the school as a snowstorm shelter, but Addie Johnson feared getting into trouble.
“We’re going to jail,” she told her son.
“Maybe not,” DeMario Johnson replied.
They accepted Withey’s offer.
Once inside, Withey managed to open the cafeteria and found cereal, juice, water, and coffee for the group. He cooked pizza for lunch and meatballs for dinner. The group spent the hours in the cafeteria eating and getting to know each other. They shared what Christmas meant to everyone, where they went to school, what they did for a living, and how they were stranded in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.
“We just enjoyed that we had a place to stay, we had food and we had a new family,” Addie told the Post. “On Christmas morning we all woke up and said Merry Christmas to everyone.”
Sometime over the weekend, Withey found the master keys and opened a room to retrieve a TV so the group could watch movies in the cafeteria. When night fell, some slept on chairs and others on the floor. As the weather improved, the men helped Withey clear snow from their cars using a snowblower he found at school.
Before the last person left on Christmas Day, the crew of strangers created a group chat titled “Blizzard Survivors” in which they made plans to gather for a summer picnic. They cleaned the school, washed the dishes and took out the garbage before parting ways.
They wanted to make sure they left things as they found them, a token of gratitude to the school that housed, nurtured and entertained them.
After reviewing the security footage, the school premises and the handwritten note, Cheektowaga police called Withey’s actions “heroic” and said they would not press charges in the burglary. The school district, which said Withey acted “out of desperation,” thanked the quick-thinking man for his “selfless, life-saving and courageous efforts” to keep people safe.
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