Bills-Steelers playoff game postponed due to wintry weather
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Bills were set to face the Steelers Sunday at 1 p.m. Saturday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the game had been postponed, due to extreme winter weather. The Bills will now play the Steelers at 4:30 p.m. Monday.
Hochul and the NFL cited public safety concerns as the reason for the postponement, with up to two feet of snow projected to fall on the Buffalo region over a 24-hour period starting Saturday night.
Hochul said she started talking with the NFL on Thursday about the possibility of having to reschedule the game because of what she called a “dangerous storm.” Hochul, who is from just outside of Buffalo, closed her news conference by saying, “Go, Bills.”
“We want our Bills to win, but we don’t want 60,000 to 70,000 people traveling to the football game in what’s going to be horrible conditions,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference in the Buffalo suburbs.
The forecast for the Buffalo area called for heavy snow and winds gusting as high as 65 mph (105 kph) Saturday, with one to two feet (.03 to 0.6 meters) or more of snow eventually piling up. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning lasting through 7 a.m. Monday, saying that “travel will be very difficult to impossible at times,” with the combination of snow and very strong wind causing near-zero visibility.
Initially, Buffalo had offered volunteer shovelers $20 an hour to remove snow from the stadium. Sunday, they posted on Twitter asking people to stay home and abide by travel bans.
Includes reporting from The Associated Press