Snow job! Brooklyn pols blast lackluster storm response Brooklyn pols
blast city for lackluster storm response

By Gary Buiso Monday, December 27, 2010 11:09 PM EST Comment (No comments
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Brooklyn received a one-two punch on Monday — first when Mother Nature
pummeled us with the sixth-largest snowstorm ever, then when City Hall
didn’t do enough to clear the streets of the most-important borough.

The blizzard that dumped two feet of snow ended in the wee hours on
Monday, but hundreds of streets throughout Brooklyn remained untouched by
city plows all day, stranding and endangering residents, and infuriating
critics.

And elevated subway tracks — common in Brooklyn, though virtually
unheard of in Manhattan — were rendered impassable all day long (though
limited service on the F line was restored by 10:30 pm and was expected
to be available for Tuesday’s rush hour).

“This isn’t the worst storm we’ve ever had, but it seems to be the
worst response to any major storm in recent memory,” said Councilman
Steve Levin (D–Williamsburg).

Indeed, much of Brooklyn remained inaccessible by public or private
transportation. Major arteries, such as Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint and
Fourth Avenue in Park Slope were impassable.

And Southern Brooklyn was no better off.

“Here, in the ‘outer-boroughs,’ we are used to being the
step-children of Manhattan and waiting for available plows, but there
are major streets in my district that haven’t see a plow at all,”
Councilman David Greenfield (D–Midwood) said around midday. “I’ve
never seen such a wholesale failure of government to provide basic
services.”

Borough President Markowitz agreed. “I would doubt the Upper East Side
is like this. Or the Upper West Side for that matter,” he said.

“Something happened in this snowstorm that we got behind the
curve. Something came up short, and Brooklyn … took the brunt of it.”

But Sanitation officials saw things differently.

ADVERTISEMENT “There is no difference for any borough,” said agency
spokesman Keith Mellis. “It’s the same plan we use for the entire
city.”

The city insisted that the culprit was simply the storm’s ferocity,
though abandoned cars at a variety of intersections didn’t help the
clean-up effort.

At the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 21st Street in the South Slope,
for example, a traffic jam of abandoned cars imprisoned a plow, rendering
the vehicle impotent.

The same scene played out down in Midwood, on Avenue N and East 13th
Street.

“I don’t want to hit the parked cars,” a Sanitation worker told
our photographer on a side street, explaining why he didn’t risk moving
down the narrow road.

The agency said it assembled 365 salt spreaders, 1,700 plows and 2,000
workers to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg didn’t exactly
feel the borough’s pain, saying at a Monday news conference that “the
world has not come to an end.”

“The city’s going on,” he added. “Many people are taking the
day off. Most stores are open. There’s no reason for anyone to panic.”

At press time, no weather-related deaths have been reported. The roof of
a parking garage on Second Street in Park Slope collapsed because of the
snow, shutting down Fourth Avenue from Atlantic Avenue to Eighth Street.

And things weren’t all bad. At least not for WR Hardware on Manhattan
Avenue in Greenpoint, where White Monday became Black Friday.

“People were lined up in front of the door this morning,” said
manager Martin G, whose hottest sellers were ice choppers, shovels,
window-washing fluid and salt. A snowstorm “always helps,” he added.

And in Gowanus, fresh air was a welcome respite from the familiar,
fetid odor arising from the polluted Gowanus Canal.

“This is one of those rare occasions that you can’t smell the
stink,” said President Street resident Linda Mariano.

Brooklyn’s business hub — the Metrotech complex, which includes
the Community Newspaper Group Building — was all but abandoned, save
for a handful of hurried pedestrians, and a small boy with plastic bags
strangely tied over his winter boots, frolicking in a massive snowdrift.

Train service was suspended in much of southern Brooklyn, trapping the
area in a snowy isolation.

“We haven’t been plowed and we can’t get out,” said Edith Storch,
a resident of Sea Gate, a private community near Coney Island, that is
without public transportation altogether. “I don’t see my way out
of here. We were praying we don’t need medical care.”

Transit spokeswoman Deirdre Parker said the storm scuttled the agency’s
pre-blizzard preparations, which included moving trains from outdoor
yards to enclosed areas.

“It just overwhelmed our equipment,” she said. Ice on the electrified
rail stalled trains, some as long as seven hours. “We had snow blowers,
but at some point during a blizzard, it just blows right back.”

Suspended train service meant a rare day of silence for those living
adjacent to the elevated tracks.

“It’s very quiet here today,” said Barbara Donnelly, who has lived
on E. 15th Street and Avenue P, near the Q and B trains, for the past
55 years. “It seems strange without them.”