New York City – As a snowstorm approaches with the power to pummel parts of New York with several inches, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking no chances of another political beating.
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Less than two weeks after a blizzard paralyzed the city and its airports for days, the beleaguered mayor on Thursday detailed new and experimental plans for cleanup after the coming storm. Those include GPS devices on 50 sanitation trucks in Brooklyn, which was among the spots hardest hit by the last storm and worst neglected by the city.
“I realize there were problems with the city’s snow-cleaning efforts last week,” said Bloomberg, whose reputation as a pragmatic manager took a hit from the cleanup failures. “We want to assure all New Yorkers that we are doing everything in our power to make sure we don’t experience those kinds of problems again.”
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for New York City, plus parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and suburban Long Island, beginning Friday morning. Two to 5 inches of light snow could come overnight Thursday with heavier snow possible Friday into Saturday.
But forecasters say it’s difficult to nail down a possible total because accumulation will vary widely depending on where snow bands linger the longest. That means the Bronx, in the northern part of the city, could see as much as 18 inches, while Staten Island, on the southern end, could get just 3, for instance.
The late-December storms in the East caused the cancellation of more than 10,000 flights and delayed travel plans for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Major U.S. airlines are again warning of delays and cancellations and waiving the usual fees to change flights. American, United and Continental all say there could be travel disruptions at the large New York-area airports: Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy.
Last month’s storm dumped 2 feet in some places. Many streets in boroughs outside Manhattan went unplowed for days, and ambulances and buses got stuck in the snow. Calls to 911 backed up, and some people who needed urgent medical care did not get it. The snow melted days later to reveal huge piles of trash that garbage trucks hadn’t been able to reach.
The pilot GPS devices in Brooklyn, Bloomberg said, will let officials track plows and also let sanitation workers in the field report problems, like stuck cars, with exact locations. If successful, the city plans to install GPS on all of its 1,700 sanitation trucks.
The city will also deploy teams from its street conditions observation unit, which typically looks for quality-of-life problems like potholes and graffiti, to monitor conditions during the storm. The teams will shoot video of the conditions on the streets.
The point of ratcheting up the communication is to avoid problems rampant in the previous storm, Bloomberg said.
“We did not know where all of our trucks were, we did not know how many stuck cars and buses there were, we did not have the kind of information we needed to respond,” Bloomberg said.
The mayor has also begun personnel shakeups.
On Thursday, officials said the Sanitation Commissioner was replacing managers in the south Brooklyn district where many streets went unplowed long after the storm. The city is reducing the size of that district to make it more even with the north Brooklyn district, officials said.
The move officially goes into effect Monday, and during the upcoming storm the existing managers will be shadowed by their replacements as part of the transition.
The chief of the fire department’s Emergency Medical Service Command was replaced this week amid investigations of hundreds of ambulances getting stranded in the snow and 911 calls becoming backlogged. Aides say more demotions or firings are not unlikely.
Bloomberg has also directed the citywide director of emergency communications to examine why the communications and dispatching system failed.
Even after the last flakes fell, one woman with a broken ankle waited 30 hours for an ambulance. Another woman waiting for help gave birth to an unconscious child who was declared dead at a hospital.
City operators fielded 49,478 calls to 911 on Dec. 27, the day after the storm. That total was the sixth highest in any day since the city began keeping statistics. At one point, there was a backlog of 1,300 calls.
Federal prosecutors and city investigators are also looking into claims that sanitation workers sabotaged the city’s snow cleanup as a job action staged to protest a department shuffling of supervisors.
I think Bloomberg has made it worse. Now he’s busy punishing others for his misbehavior. He’s surrounded himself with yes men and women. What a sham.
Return the gps systems and replace it with salt that was removed the last few years, it will do a much better job just like in the past.
Anyone familiar with commercial GPS tracking device knows how extremely valuable it is. As a matter of fact, the Unions usually oppose such devices as it allows the owners to figure out how much time the job really takes and not the Shop Manual hours the Unions go by. Less than 15 years ago, UPS went on a world-wide strike because of the tracking device which the Unions were tricked into agreeing to have installed (for customer online proof etc.).
“As a snowstorm approaches with the power to pummel parts of New York with several inches”
Thats too funny, PUMMEL WITH SEVERAL INCHES. Lets not go crazy here.
This quote from Bloomberg shows us all you need to know about our Mayer
“We did not know where all of our trucks were, we did not know how many stuck cars and buses there were, we did not have the kind of information we needed to respond,” Bloomberg said
Mr. Bloomberg this is not the first snow storm that hit NYC, why didn’t we have this problems in the passed
Next Bloomberg will announce that he invented snow plows
Is this arrogance or stupidity or both ?
The GPS systems mean bupkis, if you don’t have the manpower to operate the snow plows, as well as the supervisors, to supervise and/or discipline lazy snow plow operators who engage in sleeping, or taking excessive breaks. It is about time that the NY Newspapers (the secular ones) took their gloves off and finally criticized Bloomberg after nine years. To paraphrase what Golda Meir said to Anwar Sadat, when he first came to EY in 1977, “What took you so long”.
The city is “cutting back” on the saniation dept budget, by installing GPS into the garbage trucks…..
Wow!!
Olam hafooch ta’eetee
The fact that the city is installing GPS devices in the garbage trucks and in the neglected areas of Brooklyn of this past snow storm is in effect admitting guilt that the NYDOS intentionally sabataged the snow clean-up and that the workers cannot be trusted to do their jobs without electronic monitoring. This is also hurtful to the NYDOS workers because before they would goof-off and no one would know about it or could easily prove it. Now they are being watched and it will be harder for them to goof-off without getting caught. So now they actually have to work their entire shift without taking the usual unauthorized breaks which they often would take without anyone knowing about it. So these wise-guys basically shot themslves in the foot. This is the result of their flawed plans as the saying goes, “you put garbage in you get garbage out.” or “What goes around comes around.”
“The chief of the fire department’s Emergency Medical Service Command was replaced this week amid investigations of hundreds of ambulances getting stranded in the snow and 911 calls becoming backlogged. “
Can someone please explain me how its the FDNY EMS chiefs fault that the ambulances got stuck, and NOT the DOSs fault???
murphys law will predict the following: This time around there will be hardly any snow!
Is he going to tell us to go to a show, theatre, why does he not say STAY HOME!!????
To #13 Maybe they should invest in snow tires for the ambulances from November to Pesach. Then store them and use them again the following year.