On Christmas Eve, 22-year-old Anndel Taylor of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found dead in her car after being stranded in the snowstorm that hit Buffalo, New York, last weekend. Taylor had recently moved back to Buffalo, where she was born, to care for her father.
Taylor had been driving home from work on Friday afternoon when her car became stuck in the blizzard, leaving her trapped inside for at least 18 hours.
Wanda Brown Steele, Taylor’s mother, suspects her daughter died from carbon monoxide poisoning rather than hypothermia, though the official cause of death is yet to be determined.
“The car was running, and the snow was still coming, so it blocked the pipes, the exhaust pipe,” Wanda Brown Steele, Taylor’s mother, told WSOC. “Then, after the car cut off, that’s when she iced up.”
Taylor Steele’s daughter made a desperate call for help during the “blizzard of the century” that pummeled western New York over the Christmas weekend.
Steele’s daughter, Taylor, planned to sleep during the blizzard and then walk home, but authorities could not help her due to the storm’s severity. Steele alerted relatives in Buffalo to search for Taylor, who was eventually found inside a home.
Shawnequa Brown, Taylor’s sister, said Taylor was scared when they found her. Gov. Kathy Hochul commented on the situation, calling it “the blizzard of the century.”
Taylor, who was stuck in her vehicle, sent her family two videos of the weather conditions, which showed her car windshields completely covered in snow and her rolling down the window to show the severity of the storm.
This blizzard is one of the most fatal in 45 years, with reports indicating it was almost as destructive as the 1977 blizzard that killed almost 30 people.
As the storm ended on Christmas morning, officials fear the death toll may still increase.