Buffalo, N.Y Couple opens up their home to stranded travelers for the weekend - ABC News

[Rhiannon12866]

Alex Campagna and Andrea Schmitt welcomed 10 tourists from South Korea into their home after the group became stranded in the middle of a winter storm while on their way to Niagara Falls. - Aired on 12/26/2022.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. They Traveled From South Korea. They Got Stranded Near Buffalo.

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/25/nyregion/snow-storm-korean-tourists.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhlSlUZBibIRp88qBqZwOPTx6Y5w3z5NiWcT3NeyPkPApOc4AHNea9nLZMV7giseeVgYvUpVeAgiahWJVBsQA2l5ZLVw8sIeClo7Im4Ajxzgs6VBPVorGHhK2Pjcr10nOWz4U3Xb3L4G_CKiQ1XLw5lp5NvdFqv2mVZhfuWV74ohaQtmKspFZt4RjwfZCKVvPWOCB52PduObRG0-RBhEqgCGmmVxYjAnupGJAZCClvGTmd94XI-4b5cO9AROqX_J30waeTmbGP0rvE7ZEx7wXZM2wU

The visitors — seven women and three men — filled the three-bedroom house, sleeping on couches, sleeping bags, an air mattress and in the home’s guest bedroom. The other travelers included parents with their daughter, an Indiana college student, and two college-age friends from Seoul. Three of them spoke English proficiently.

They spent the weekend swapping stories, watching the Buffalo Bills defeat the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve and sharing delicious Korean home-cooked meals prepared by the guests, like jeyuk bokkeum, a spicy stir-fried pork dish, and dakdori tang, a chicken stew laced with fiery red pepper. To the surprise and glee of the Korean guests, Mr. Campagna and his wife, who are both fans of Korean food, had all the necessary condiments on hand: mirin, soy sauce, Korean red pepper paste, sesame oil and chili flakes. There was also kimchi and a rice cooker.

“It was kind of like fate,” Mr. Choi said, remarking on the luck of arriving at the Campagnas’ doorstep with their fully stocked kitchen and unhesitating hospitality. He said the hosts were “the kindest people I have ever met.”

One of the guests, the mother of the Indiana college student, was a fabulous cook, he said.

“We destroyed so much food,” he added.

Mr. Campagna said that the unexpected guests had been a delight.

“We have enjoyed this so much,” he said, calling it a “unique blessing,” and adding that the experience has inspired the couple to plan a visit to South Korea. “We will never forget this.”

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Awww, thanks so much for the background! Kudos to this kind and welcoming couple

They definitely saved this group of travelers, we needed a feel-good story about now...

[wnylib]

12. Here's another feel good story from the blizzard.

I heard this guy interviewed on Buffalo NPR. The only link for the story that I could find is a very lengthy article that has a short paragraph about him.

A barber, Craig Elston, saw a person "laid out" on the street in front of his shop. He did not say what he meant by "laid out," but I think he meant frozen. He had gone in to his barber shop early in the day, before the blizzard made travel impossible. But due to the storm, he had no customers.

So he decided that, since the shop had a lot of space and was warm, it could be a safe place for stranded people to go. He posted his location on social media and 30 different stranded people showed up.

His shop had vending machines, so people ate from those at first. But they needed more food. There was a small store on the corner in the same situation as the barber shop. The store owner had made it in and stayed because it was too bad outside to try going home.

So a couple people at the barber shop went to the store and picked up food for the group. Craig, the barber shop owner, gave them money to cover the purchases.

They stayed a couple days until it was safe to go back out. He said people slept on the floor and on the barber chairs. A few even asked for haircuts while they were there. He has a TV in the shop so they watched it together.

[Rhiannon12866]

14. Awww, I agree, another feel-good story, people reaching out to strangers in an emergency

Thanks so much for sharing that, these days we need all the positive news that we can get!

[sheshe2]

3. recommend!

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Isn't this a great story for these times? Feel good story of the day...

[sheshe2]

5. It is, yes.

That storm was frightening. I am so glad everyone is safe.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. We were lucky here in the Northeast, we got rain, then the temps dropped and we did get snow

But not all that much, the big problems were the cold and high winds. We lost power, but only for a few hours - for the first time since Hurricane Irene came through in 2011. We're lucky, this is a new area and the lines are underground.

[calimary]

7. Lucky here in the Pacific Northwest, too.

It’s raining steadily as we get into the wee hours of what is now Tuesday the 27th. What snow there was has all melted but it’s still pretty chilly. However, not like it was a few days ago!

Take care, everybody! Stay safe and warm! We need all hands on deck in 2023!

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Fortunately the rain stopped here since we're experiencing record cold

The temps were close to 50, then dropped almost 40 degrees on Thursday. So it's fortunate that the precipitation stopped since we're experiencing record lows, the local (Albany, NY) weather guy said it's the 5th lowest since 1879! So right now it's just cold but the power is back on, thanks for small blessings.

[calimary]

18. Raining here - expected to continue til the weekend.

It’s a very reasonable 46 degrees here and all the snow’s melted, even in the gutters.

But the worry-wort in me is worried. If it’s this tolerable NOW, what does THAT mean for the summer? Hotter temps for longer stretches? I dread the thought. Two years ago, if memory serves, we had I think three days of 100+ degree temperatures. Last year we had more than a week of ‘em. I’m nervously hoping that’s kind of a fluke and NOT a trend.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. I'd give a lot for 40s, since the temps dropped, it's been in the low 20s and teens

But I do appreciate what you said about the summer. My first job was summers at a local amusement park. It used to get hot and the boss would send the mechanics around to offer "salt pills" to the workers. But times sure have changed and it's beyond me how those who work there now can stand the oppressive heat. Summers have definitely gotten hotter.

[wnylib]

10. Those people were doubly lucky.

Lucky that someone took them in when their van got stuck, but also very lucky that the van DID get stuck since they were headed for Niagara Falls.

The "Niagara region" is just slightly north of Buffalo. The Peace Bridge crossing to the Canadian side of the Falls (which is where most tourists go) was closed down by the storm. They would have been stranded there - if they had made it that far. There are more businesses and open spaces there, so less chances of finding a safe place to ride out the storm once they could go no further. Also, the Niagara region on both sides of the Canadian border got hit VERY badly in this blizzard.

The area where their van got stuck, Williamsville, is an upscale northern suburb of Buffalo. That increased their chances of finding a pleasant, hospitable place, which they did.

The fact that the family whose door they knocked on were fans of Korean food is downright uncanny.

Getting stuck in Williamsville was a blessing for them. They would not have survived if they had gone much further.

[Rhiannon12866]

11. That was my take on this, too - it could have been tragic if that hadn't knocked on that door.

Sounds like they didn't know the area and were caught by surprise. And the conditions in Western New York have been all over the news - it's even been tough here in the Northeast. It was close to 50 and raining, then the temps dropped about 40 degrees and we had snow and high winds, lost power for a few hours on Saturday. And it sounds like they were a pretty congenial group, too - but someone or something was certainly looking after them! Thanks for the explanation!

[wnylib]

16. High winds and very cold temps

seem to be the main characteristic of this storm across the nation. I can't remember a time when there was a nationwide storm with such consistent characteristics. This is a large country with several different climate regions and weather patterns. It's weird that the same things happened everywhere (except harsher over the Great Lakes). Rain and warm weather, sudden drop in temps, high winds and very low temps, even in the South.

Long before the storm reached NY, I expected a blizzard in this region like Buffalo got. When the storm was still in the West, I recognized the pattern of warm air, rain, and sudden temperature drop from a nearly identical blizzard in Cleveland in 1978 when I lived there.

That one started west of Ohio, in Indiana and Illinois, with snow and some wind, but turned into a monster blizzard when it reached Cleveland, due to the effect of Lake Erie. So when I heard reports from the West and Midwest about this recent storm, I warned people here that it could become a very bad blizzard. I did not know if it would be widespread enough to reach me, since I am farther inland than Buffalo, but I expected that Buffalo would get a full scale blizzard because of the patterns of the storm in the West and the effect of Lake Erie, just like what had happened in Cleveland decades ago.

Now it turns out that the recent Buffalo blizzard and the one decades ago in Cleveland share something in common. Both storms experienced a sudden, dramatic drop in barometric pressure, creating a bomb cyclone.

My area did not get the Buffalo blizzard, only the rain, 45 mph wind, and 18 inches of snow.

[Rhiannon12866]

17. I agree with you, weather patterns have changed, and not for the better

I saw the map for the wind pattern and it looked like it was for the majority of the nation. We sure got wind here in NE NY, but it was Friday and Saturday. There were power outages on Saturday due to the wind. And it was weird, it almost reached 50-degrees, so we had rain, then it dropped 40-degrees so it changed to snow, but we didn't get as much as usual here. But then everything froze which was also dangerous - though we were extremely fortunate compared to Buffalo. Thanks for the details, I agree that the weather is increasing in severity.

[malaise]

9. This versus The Texas governor

Ah well!
Happy Holidays Rhiannon12866😀

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I know! They're just lucky they didn't knock on the Texas Governor's door - or Ted Cruz's!

Finally, a feel-good story! Which was the reason I posted it!

Happy holidays to you, too, my friend! It's freezing weather here in Northeastern New York as well - but at least we were spared the massive snowfall - this time!

[malaise]

15. 73 here this morning - will be high 80s with rain later

Very pleasant😀