One interesting point here is that this was the NY state thruway, which is the main E-W corridor through NY, from Buffalo to Albany and then east becoming the Mass Pike to Boston. While it's a major route, it's otherwise pretty isolated in a lot of places, and typically wide open country.

I think in some places out west they have snow plows with differential GPS so they can drive in a white out, but I haven't heard of anybody in NY having them. I have friends in Buffalo and haven't ever heard them concerned about or even mention white-outs. With the lakes they get quite a bit more snow than I do here.

In this area, where I've been for about 20 years, I've only experienced conditions of really low visibility once, and it was still possible to generally see where the road was and travel about 20 mph. A complete white-out would be a bit spooky.