BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Thursday afternoon police and firefighters spent hours trying to bring two teens to safety. Firefighters had to rescue them after they climbed up onto a grain elevator.
After the incident, first responders are asking people to stay away from the grain elevators. They say this is an example of how climbing up them is dangerous.
The girls climbed about 50 feet up to the sixth floor of Concrete-Central grain elevator, in the 700 block of Ohio Street in South Buffalo. However, when the sun went down and the temperature dropped, the girls started to panic and couldn’t find their way out.
That’s when they had to call for help. When firefighters and police officers arrived, they realized that getting to the girls was no easy task.
Buffalo Fire Department Captain Thomas Reddington said, “There are numerous holes, it’s deteriorated quite a bit over the years with no upkeep on it. And lack of lighting up there that was the big thing too.”
“We had to carefully orchestrate each move we had to make up there. In order to safely get everybody down safe,” said Reddington.
Buffalo Fire Department Battalion Chief Mark Hillery said, “I would tell everybody to stay away from this place. There’s dangers everywhere. Even when walking on the railroad bed there’s holes that go down about eight feet.”
Firefighters say when they rescued the girls they were unharmed, just cold and scared. News 4 was told they went up there to take pictures, and Friday morning they are safe.
This is extremely irritating to me. I give them a pass because they’re young, but now all the do-gooders are going to be on the look-out for people in that area.
It doesn’t say they’re going to actively try to stop people from going there though (no fences, etc.) but maybe encouraging people to stay away will HELP your cause.
It’s irritating to me because I go there a lot, and if first-responders are worried about protecting me from myself, it could cause problems. I’m sure it will likely blow over, but I had an event planned there this weekend, which will now have to be cancelled.
I’ve been there a few times when cops went by and did nothing but wave to me. A lot of people play paintball there, climb, etc. With stories like this it will turn into an “OMG this place is sooooo dangerous! Stay away!” situation.
These damn people on the thruways getting pulled over for speeding are ruining my fun because I want to speed on the thruway but now there are too many cops looking out for speeders.
No, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like you and your friends have been playing pond hockey at Delaware park for years, then some jackass drives his Blazer on the ice and crashes through, and now legislature is passed forbidding people from going on the ice.
I have literally spoken to police officers and they said the city doesn’t care that we are there so long as no one complains. That will likely change now.
^ I think you’re missing the point. Of course it’s always been trespassing… it’s property you don’t own that isn’t open to the public. As long as no one was getting in trouble it was ignored though because BPD had better things to do. Now that two morons went in there and had to be rescued it’s on the radar and will start getting attention of “we have to save you from yourself” types and BPD will have to do something when they see people there.
Also, if they put up signage or a fence, it becomes “criminal trespassing”, which is a misdemeanor.
As it stands right now it’s just “trespassing” which is a violation, and not (as far as the law is concerned) a crime.
I did do a little sniffing around though and it looks like someone actually started it on fire in May of last year and the fire boat had to be called in. That didn’t affect access, so maybe (fingers crossed) this won’t, either.