CNN
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The family of a 22-year-old woman told CNN on Tuesday that a 22-year-old woman was found dead over the holiday weekend in Buffalo, N.Y., after she was arrested in New York City. A blizzard paralyzing the west trapped her in her car.
Anndel Taylor, who moved from Charlotte, N.C., to Buffalo, said she drove home from get off work at a senior center a six-minute drive away, relatives who live in Charlotte said She’s stuck in Charlotte, and they go crazy when they lose contact with her.
Taylor sent a video to her sister group chat around 3 p.m. Friday, Tomeia Brown, one of Taylor’s older sisters, told CNN. In the video, Taylor captured the snow and the snow-covered conditions. Brown said she told her sisters who live in North Carolina that she was stuck and the snow kept falling.
Taylor called 911 and was waiting for emergency responders, Taylor’s mother Brown and Wanda Brown Steele told CNN.
“Her plan was to wait until the police got there,” her sister said. But if that fails, she plans to “get up and walk as soon as her car runs out of gas.” She also said she was going to sleep and if no one came to help, she would try to walk home when she woke up.
Her family said they kept in touch with Taylor over time. At one point, Taylor separately texted her other sister to say she was starting to panic, Brown added.
In the early hours of Christmas Eve, Taylor would send her final video message in the group chat. In the video, Taylor opens the driver’s side window of her car, revealing a road that has been turned into barren wasteland by snow. A van can be seen appearing stuck on the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing. Taylor wrote in the group chat that she thought that if she got out of the car, the snow might be up to her waist.
Later that morning, around 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve, her family in North Carolina called and sent her multiple messages. “We texted her in the group and said, ‘Are you okay?'” Brown said. The family was shocked when Taylor did not respond.
“Maybe two hours later, my sister tracked her phone,” Brown said. “she [Taylor] Must have shared her location with my sister. This shows that she is still outside. ”
The family gave the address to Taylor’s relatives in Buffalo, but once they arrived they said they saw Brown’s car but not her inside.
“So I put the information on a private Facebook page called Buffalo Blizzard 2022 and asked for help,” Brown said. She posted the address of the stalked phone and later that night received a call from an unnamed man. “He let us know he checked her pulse and there was no pulse,” Brown said.
“I really don’t believe it,” she said. “It was like a tingling in my stomach, a pain I’ve never felt before.”
Taylor’s mother, Brown Steele, told CNN she was “appalled.”
Taylor’s body wasn’t removed from the car until the next day, Brown said, after a woman posted a message on Facebook letting Brown know she had also found the car and her sister’s body.
The woman told Charlotte’s family that she would not leave unless someone came to pick her up.
With first responders unable to reach the car, the woman waited until relatives of Taylor, who lived in Buffalo, arrived. They all helped move Taylor’s body to another vehicle before she was taken to the hospital, Brown said.
After leaving multiple voicemail messages over the holiday weekend, Charlotte’s family heard back from authorities Monday night. Brown said they called to let them know they were ready to rescue Taylor. Brown’s family told them that Taylor’s body had been transported to the hospital the previous day.
“I wanted to figure out why the city couldn’t help,” Brownsteel told CNN.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on “CNN This Morning” Monday that two-thirds of the equipment dispatched to help clear snow at the height of the storm got stuck.
Poloncarz added that a Buffalo Fire Department historian said it was the first time in the agency’s history that personnel were unable to respond to emergency calls because the gravity of the situation did not allow it.
Erie County officials said Tuesday that emergency response services have been restored in the county, but they are still pleading with residents to abide by Buffalo’s travel ban and stay off the road.
CNN has reached out to the Buffalo Police Department for more details.
Taylor’s family in Charlotte had not been informed of Taylor’s official cause of death as of Tuesday night, Brown said.
Taylor was described by her sister as “a caring and nurturing person. She’s busy and she cares about a lot of people,” her sister said.
“If she can help, she will,” her mother said. “She has a lot of friends in Charlotte – a lot of people who care about her.”
Charlotte Mayor Villers issued a statement expressing his deepest condolences to Taylor’s family and friends.
“Andre passed away prematurely, and words cannot express the heartache and pain her loved one feels during this difficult time,” Lyles wrote in the statement. “This was a devastating storm that brought great tragedy, and our thoughts in Charlotte’s community are with her family.”
Her family set up a GoFundMe campaign to pay for her funeral.
Taylor turns 23 next month, Brown said.