New York City Council To Grill City Officials on Inadequate Snowstorm Response

The City Council will be holding public hearings today to attempt to get to the bottom of why the City did such a poor job in clearing snow during the Boxing Day blizzard and its aftermath. The snowpocalypse was incredible by city standards, because snow emergency routes were not cleared of snow or vehicles, and secondary and tertiary routes were impassible for days following the blizzard despite claims from city officials that the situation was well in hand.

Among the key issues that will be discusses is how and why city officials chose not to make a snow emergency declaration, which would have assisted the Sanitation Department in clearing the 250+ snow emergency routes through the city and accelerated clearing those secondary and tertiary routes.

Separately, four separate investigations by prosecutors are looking into claims that there was a work slowdown, sickout, or other work action that reduced the Sanitation Department's response.

For me, the inadequate response arose precisely because a snow emergency declaration was not issued and the MTA similarly failed to take its preparations up to the maximum level and put lives at risk by sending out buses and trains without adequate equipment, which eventually shut down the entire city's bus and subway system because equipment was snowed in.

UPDATE:
The webcast of the hearings can be viewed here.

UPDATE:
Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith has been on the hook for the city's poor response because he was brought in to deal with logistics and operations. Under questioning, Goldsmith admits that the city screwed up and provided an outline of how the city will do things going forward:

As City Council members pounded the administration with questions, Mr. Goldsmith, who is in charge of operations, acknowledged that the chain of command was murky; that the failure to declare a state of emergency hampered the response; that city workers were not deployed adequately and private contractors should have been called in; and that officials waited too long to plan for the storm.

“We owe you and all New Yorkers for that lack of performance our administration’s apology and my personal promise not to let it happen again,” Mr. Goldsmith said.

In the midst of the hearing, the Bloomberg administration released a 15-point plan of action [pdf] to prevent future missteps. The plan, as explained by Mr. Goldsmith and included in a news release, is heavy on logistics, but includes pledges to rewrite the process for declaring emergencies; equip every sanitation truck with a GPS device; improve communications; and create a Web site to provide real-time weather updates.

What's interesting is that the plan of action notes that a majority of Sanitation Department trucks lack 2-way radios, and those that do are all operating on the same frequency, which makes for problems that harken back to the dark days after 9/11 when it became clear that the emergency response was hampered by inadequate communications by and between the FDNY and NYPD. Moreover, the City has to do a better job in high volume emergency events as the 911/311 systems were overwhelmed with calls.

A huge problem with the snowstorm was a failure to communicate and a disconnect between what the Mayor's office and officials were saying and the facts on the ground in the outer boroughs where snow simply wasn't being cleared from the streets in anything resembling an orderly fashion. Adjusting the snow emergency protocols is a good first step, as is improving communications response.

NYC Snow Response Investigations Ramp Up

Federal investigators are now looking into the putrid New York City snow removal response. Brooklyn and Queens District Attorneys are also investigating malfeasance by Sanitation Department workers.

Every day brings another new revelation about Sanitation Department foul ups. The latest includes Sanitation Department workers apparently piling snow up at or along Washington Cemetery to the point of tipping over nearly two dozen gravestones.

Sanit crews dumped tons of dirty snow from the Christmas weekend blizzard into the city’s biggest Jewish cemetery, toppling 21 gravestones and wrecking an iron fence.

"It’s jarring, and it’s an emotional thing," said Yana Zhuravel, a lawyer whose grandparents’ headstones in Washington Cemetery in Midwood, Brooklyn, were among those knocked over.

"Clearly, nobody came with the intention of doing this, I’m sure," said Zhuravel.

"But when an accident happens of this caliber, you expect some form of accountability."

"We were devastated," said cemetery manager Marisa Tarantino.

Workers believe the snow was dumped sometime over the New Year’s holiday, Tarantino said.

Union officials keep saying that the poor sanitation response can be traced back to poor funding, but that ignores the stupidity witnessed on videos showing Sanitation Department drivers turning SUVs into pinatas, and videos showing Sanitation plows driving on snowbound streets with their plows in an upright position - doing anything but clearing the snow.

“We have some video of sanitation trucks not plowing streets despite being on plow routes. Some units were sitting at Dunkin Donuts for 7,8, 9, 10 hours,” Halloran said.

Additional footage showed a V-shaped plow on East 24th Street and Quentin Road in the Madison section of Brooklyn that appears to have been set at the wrong angle because while it moved some snow, it also left much of the white stuff on the road behind it.

All of the pictures raise new questions about what some sanitation workers were doing during the blizzard.

“If there were many trucks that did not have their plows down somebody gave them the order and we have to find out who that was,” Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz told Kramer.

The Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty says that his workers did a tremendous job considering the difficult task of removing snow from thousands of miles of streets, but even Mayor Bloomberg concedes that the city failed in its essential obligations to clear the streets to make them passable.

New York City Freeing Itself From Snowy Grip As Investigations Commence Into Poor Snowstorm Response

New York City streets are now finally passable of the icy grip of the snow for a bit as the warmer weather has finally melted a significant amount of snow - which the City has finally plowed from streets. It's still not ideal, but a damned sight better than this time last week, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg was saying things were business as usual as much of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island didn't so much as see a snowplow in sight and snow emergency routes were impassible due to lack of plows and stranded vehicles of all sorts.

We'll be getting investigations and hearings starting next week, so those reports about sanitation department work slowdowns or other work actions may get new life. The City's Sanitation Department appears to be overcompensating for the lack of snow removal earlier in the week

And since the snow will keep melting (although it wont completely disappear by the end of the week when another potential snow maker will come on through, the City is now griping about the lack of garbage pickups. Again, this is a health, safety, welfare issue - and the garbage pickups were halted in the wake of the snowstorm but the garbage trucks can now be tasked with garbage removal.

Throw in the potential for manhole explosions due to saltwater intrusion into electric power underground vaults and stray voltage shocking pets while walking, and the inevitable potholes the size of Mt. Rushmore, there will be plenty to gripe about in the coming weeks.

UPDATE:
That didn't take long. Mrs. Lawhawk forwards along a 1010wins news report of a manhole fire that required a building evacuation due to high levels of carbon monoxide:

The melting snow and salted road eroded cables below sending smoke and flames shooting out of manholes Monday in East Harlem.

1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa reports

The Fire Department evacuated the Shield Institute building on 107th Street after elevated carbon monoxide levels were reported at the location.

Seventy-five clients from the center, which services disabled adults, were transferred to Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.

The FDNY and Con Ed are evaluating damage to nearby transformers.

The manhole fires closed off E 106th Street to E 109th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Check traffic and transit here.

Bloomberg Getting Testy Over Snowstorm Response

Media reports are replete with complaints from New Yorkers around the City about the City's poor storm response. Mayor Mike Bloomberg keeps mentioning that this is the worst storm in the city's history (5th most at Central Park, but he's at least in the ballpark).

Addressing complaints about snow-covered streets and continued airport disruptions, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday called the blizzard of 2010 "not like any other" storm to hit the city, and said he was heading "the biggest effort to clear snow that our city has ever seen."

"We still have a long way to go," he told a press conference, but some 1,000 vehicles were removed from key highways on Monday and the city is hiring private plows to help.

Bloomberg defended his fire, police and transportation departments, saying the enormity of the blizzard overwhelmed the city and hundreds of abandoned vehicles made it that much harder to plow streets.

But, in response to a reporter's question about frustrated residents, he added that "I'm angry too" about the cleanup pace.

The problem starts at the top. Bloomberg refuses to acknowledge that he made the mistake of not declaring a state of emergency that would have given various Departments additional capabilities and forced people off the roads. The state of emergency would further show the seriousness of the situation and the more drivers that stayed off the roads, the more likely the Sanitation Department could get on with clearing roads around the City.

Major roads in Manhattan are clear, but good luck trying to traverse secondary and tertiary roads - especially in the outer boroughs. Some have not yet been touched by plows.

Then again, some side streets and SUV owners might wish that the plows had not come down their street.

As the storm bore down on the Metro area, a state of emergency would have been the prudent course of action. Not only would that have communicated the seriousness of the situation, but it would have meant that non-essential businesses would be closed and that traffic would be minimal.

Since that wasn't done, streets became clogged with cars, trucks, and even emergency vehicles and sanitation plows became stuck. Those folks who paid heed to warnings to avoid driving found themselves stuck, delayed, or stranded by buses and subways that were inoperative, delayed, or stuck on routes. The MTA has done a poor job in getting its subways operational, as there are ongoing delays, cancellations, and rerouting of trains.

That has further complicated and delayed the snow clearing operations. Staten Island residents are finding themselves unable to get in touch with 311 or other official phone lines for reporting unplowed streets (probably because everyone around the city is calling in the same problems). It's little wonder that the City gets an F from Staten Island residents.

But remember, if you fail to clear your own sidewalks, you can be subject to fines.

UPDATE:
Someone better hold the MTA accountable for sending out hundreds of buses in the snowstorm only to be stranded and stuck on route.

How Not To Tow A Stuck Front End Loader

This intrepid video should be exhibit A by the owner of a snowed in SUV in Brooklyn for why the Department of Sanitation tow truck operator and "operator" of a front end loader should be on the hook for all damages sustained by a parked and snowed in SUV.

The front end loader was stuck in snow drifts, and the tow truck is attempting to extricate the loader to poor results. Someone better explain why that front end loader wasn't equipped with tire chains given the poor conditions. Moreover, whoever was driving that equipment didn't have the first clue as to what he was doing and the tow truck operator was just as clueless.



BTW - there is quite a bit of cursing involved.