Target store employees offer refuge, play Santa during Buffalo blizzard

Target employees at a store in upstate New York brought some holiday cheer and round-the-clock hospitality to trapped visitors during one of the worse snowstorms in the history of Buffalo.

Starting on Friday, Dec. 23, the Target store in Cheektowaga, which is located outside of Buffalo, opened its doors to stranded motorists as the historic storm slammed the region with blizzard conditions, reported the Buffalo News.

The seven stranded Target employees went on to play hosts for two days and nights as the deadly storm bore down on the closed store, providing snacks, water, a change of clothes, basic hygiene items, phone chargers and things to pass the time, such as crayons and coloring books, the report said.    

The employees scraped store windows, which kept icing over, in order to watch for more people in need, the report continued. And folks kept coming, with the store providing a safe haven for an eventual 25 people who had been stranded in their cars, including an elderly man and a woman with muscular dystrophy.

The employees even put together a Christmas meal, complete with mashed potatoes on Dec. 25, the same day on which the store was finally dug out.  

In a statement to Chain Store Age, Mark Schindele, executive VP and chief stores officer at Target, said that the phrase “Tarzhay magic” took on a whole new meaning during the incident.

“Thanks to the compassion and quick thinking of the team members at our Walden Galleria store, they were able to provide shelter to those who were stranded, and also offered care, comfort and holiday cheer,” he said. “Their actions are a living example of Target’s values and we are thankful to have been able to assist those in need.”

One of the stranded travelers, TikTok user @carlarodxd, kept up a steady stream of posts about time at the store on her TikTok page, with one of her videos being viewed 5.4 million times. Rodriguez posted an update once she was safely home and praised the store workers.

"Considering ourselves lucky thanks to them," she wrote on TikTok.