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Stranded South Korean tourists find refuge from US snowstorm in New York couple’s home

  • The visitors stayed for two nights at Alex Campagna’s Buffalo home, passing time by cooking Korean meals and watching football with their hosts
  • One of the members of the tour group called the experience a ‘unique blessing’

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Alex Campagna (left) with the stranded South Korean tourists at his home in New York. Photo: Alex Campagna/Facebook
Business Insider

When their van got stuck in the snow in Williamsville, New York, a South Korean tour group found refuge with a Good Samaritan who sheltered them through the blizzard.

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The group of 10 travellers in the van – which included nine tourists from South Korea – were making their way to Niagara Falls from Washington, DC, when they found themselves in the middle of a blizzard. Two men in the group decided to knock on a door to ask for shovels to try to get their van out of a ditch.

Instead, they ended up with a place to stay until they could be picked up on Sunday after the storm cleared, The New York Times reported.

Alex Campagna, a dentist, posted on Facebook that at around 2pm (local time) on Friday, he heard a “frantic knock on the door today during the worst blizzard I’ve experienced.”

Residents making snow angels in Buffalo, New York, on December 25. Photo: Clare Purcell via AP
Residents making snow angels in Buffalo, New York, on December 25. Photo: Clare Purcell via AP

Campagna and his wife ended up inviting their 10 visitors in, where they put them up on couches, in sleeping bags, on an air mattress, and in a spare bedroom, The Times reported. Campagna didn’t want to let the tour group back out on the roads, saying he knew, “as a Buffalonian, this is on another level, the Darth Vader of storms.”

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