Morning News Brief
Written by Tom Tharp on December 13, 2021
National Grid sent out more than 3400 workers to restore power to the nearly 235,000 people who were without power after the high winds Saturday. The storm caused 225 broken utility poles, 100 damaged transformers, and hundreds of toppled trees, tree limbs and downed wires. 35 thousand customers are still without power. Genesee county was among those hardest hit with over 8000 outages reported. National Grid is estimating that it will take till 11:30pm today to finish restoring power in Western NY.
The mask or vaccination mandate is in effect. With the new mandate businesses must choose either to make sure that all patrons are vaccinated or have all patrons wear masks or face a 1000 dollar fine for each patron who is not following the mandate. Businesses may use CDC vaccine cards, the Excelsior Pass, Excelsior Pass Plus, SMART Health Cards issued outside of New York State. New York state health commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said vaccinations and masks are necessary to slow the spread of the omicron variant. A statement was issued by GO Health leadership, “To reduce the spread in our communities, we need to increase vaccination rates and increase testing in order to identify and isolate those who are positive with COVID-19. However, rural county health departments continue to have issues securing additional testing resources. GO Health and local officials continue to advocate for additional resources and assistance from the state in order to have free testing in our communities.”
The Buffalo Sabres lost Saturday against the Capitals in a shootout 3 to 2. Vinnie Hinostroza scored the first goal and Will Butcher scored the last goal. Buffalo is going against the Jets in Winnipeg on Thursday as the start of a 3 game road trip.
The Buffalo Bills fell short in a heartbreaker loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 33-27 in Overtime. The Bills had been behind 24-3 at half time and then a rushing touchdown by Allen, and throws to Knox and Davis brought it to a one score game. A field goal with less than a minute to go tied it up. But it wasn’t to be, after losing the ball quickly the Buccaneers scored a touchdown to win the game. They’ll be home next weekend to take on another NFC South opponent. The 5-8 Carolina Panthers come to Orchard Park for a 1:00 kickoff on December 19.
