Althouse: "The mayor has to stop acting like 'Baghdad Bob' saying the streets are fine. No they aren't. Where the hell are the plows?"

December 29, 2010

"The mayor has to stop acting like 'Baghdad Bob' saying the streets are fine. No they aren't. Where the hell are the plows?"

"Forty ambulances were still stuck in snowdrifts Tuesday night."

50 comments:

AllenS said...: New Yorkers are whiney little bitches. Get out there and shovel.

WV: reads; 12/29/10, 6:02 AM
Toad Trend said...: Same thing happens in Buffalo when there is a storm, the problem is all the cars parked in the side streets. Only the main arteries can be plowed, initially. Then the slow process of cleaning up the side streets begins. Of course, in Buffalo, rather than bitch about it the majority of people either get busy digging themselves out or go to the gin mill and wait it out.; 12/29/10, 6:08 AM
Unknown said...: This is reminiscent of some Chicago mayor 20 years ago who didn't clear the streets after a bad storm and was promptly turned out of office.

Gothamites put up with Bloomie's nonsense because he's supposed to be able to get the big stuff done. If he can't, then the nonsense isn't worth it.

Mike Royko (I think) put it succinctly when he said, "Corruption that works is supposed to work".; 12/29/10, 6:27 AM
KCFleming said...: Too much time spent on the food police in NYC.; 12/29/10, 6:52 AM
Scott M said...: Given the tax rates that New Yorkers are forced to pay, a snowflake should never touch a street or sidewalk within city limits.; 12/29/10, 7:10 AM
MadisonMan said...: It wasn't that Mayor Bilandic didn't clear the streets. It's that his own street was pristine and clean.

That said, New Yorkers sure do whine.

But Madisonians do too -- I recall last December's icy storm when they just plowed the main streets. All the side streets were sheets of ice. Result: Uproar. Of course, since Madison is not the center of media universe, you didn't hear about it.

If you can't complain about the weather, there's not really much you can complain about, is there?; 12/29/10, 7:20 AM
Tank said...: I'm not complaining, but here in northern NJ we got about 30". Whoo boy. Lotta snow. Took me about 3 and half hours to shovel out. The snow was too high to use my snow blower. Then I had a half day off.

The NY problem. There's no place to put the snow.

Of course, this (management) is the kind of thing the nanny is supposed to be good at.; 12/29/10, 7:39 AM
Palladian said...: "Too much time spent on the food police in NYC."

Bloomberg wouldn't allow them to salt the streets.; 12/29/10, 8:08 AM
KCFleming said...: Ha!; 12/29/10, 8:18 AM
Leland said...: Bloomberg wouldn't allow them to salt the streets.

Beat me to it... well played.; 12/29/10, 8:37 AM
Big Mike said...: It's good to see the myth of Bloomberg's competence punctured at last.

For those of you who haven't been following this, what I've picked up from the Internet is (1) Manhattan, and especially the area around Bloomberg's residence, is cleared of snow but the rest of the boroughs can fugedaboutit; and (2) the New Yawkas have (most of them anyway) shoveled their sidewalks, but with two or more feet of snow still in the streets theres no getting to work or to the grocery.

@edutcher, that was mayor Bilandic (pronounced "bland ITCH") in 1979. He was followed by Jane Byrne, who was even worse.; 12/29/10, 8:42 AM
Tully said...: If he were still around, former Mayor Bill McNichols of Denver might have some words of advice about blizzards and snow removal for Mayor Bloomberg.

Yeah, I remember the Xmas Blizzard of '82.; 12/29/10, 8:48 AM
jr565 said...: The same thing I said about Bush's handling of Katrina, what part of "the fifth largest storm" that we've ever had on record" don't people understand.
If you get a light sprinkling there is no problem with plows geting all the snow up. But when you get into the territory of "one of the worst" it ramps up the problems and make it harder to actually solve. Plus, when the plows are out and bump into cars, some ahole is recording it and bad mouthing the guy driving the plow for damaging a car.
If your street hasn't been plowed yet, chances are you live out in the boonies on a street that's hard to reach. Deal with it as one of the downsides of living out in the boonies. When the fifth largest snow storm hits New York, it might take a while for your street to get plowed. There's no incompetence involved that's just the facts of life.

And I'm not saying this as a fan of Bloomberg.; 12/29/10, 9:10 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Bloomberg wouldn't allow them to salt the streets.

Bloomberg passed himself off as a "good guy", a no labels politician, a subway riding millionaire..

Jesus said You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. Matthew 5:13.

Bloomberg to City.. Drop Dead.; 12/29/10, 9:10 AM
jr565 said...: to put it in perspective. I live in midtown, and the day after the storm I couldnt' buy milk because most stores were closed, and there were no deliveries to the stores that were open. If the storm is enough to shut down commerce for a day, there's going to be some serious issues with getting snow out of back streets in some outer burrough.; 12/29/10, 9:15 AM
jr565 said...: 1700 plows, plus 365 salt spreaders out plowing the streets (which I think is the record number of plows being used for a snowstorm) . And before plowing can commence a lot of cars that were abandoned have to be towed which slows down the whole process

Indicendtally, back in 1969 there was another major snow storm and then mayor Lindsay got hammered for nto dealign with the outer burroughs and concentrating on manhattan. So, every time there's a major snowstorm it looks like the outer burroughs with all of their quite side streets get particularly hard hit. Rather than bitching about those living in the outer burroughs should accept that as a fact of life. It won't matter if there is a republican or a democrat in office at the time.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-27/snowbound-new-yorkers-upset-about-unplowed-streets.html; 12/29/10, 9:22 AM
Leland said...: If your street hasn't been plowed yet, chances are you live out in the boonies on a street that's hard to reach. Deal with it as one of the downsides of living out in the boonies.

In other words, Bloomberg, and his apologist, give middle finger to the burrows and a nice healthy New Yorker, "F You, my roads are clear in Manhattan!" Yeah, we hear.; 12/29/10, 9:32 AM
Known Unknown said...: This happens annually in Columbus, Ohio.; 12/29/10, 9:46 AM
SarcastiCarrie said...: Oh no! People are without food...did these people not see news and weather reports alerting them that a blizzard was coming? And if they didn't see it, why didn't their friends and relatives alert them and remind them to have extra milk, beer, bread, frozen pizza on hand?

I live in Chicago. We had 6" of snow over Christmas. We made sure we had food (and gas for the snowblower...and the generator). It ended up being wet snow, so I shoveled it. I even shoveled a little bit of the street at the catch basin at the corner so that as it melted, we didn't get street flooding.

I thought New Yorkers all took the subway anyway, so who needs the streets as long as people have shoveled (or trampled) the walks.; 12/29/10, 10:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Why not use the salt he has confiscated from restaurants to clean the streets? Seriously, I saw pics of idle plows. Where are the union members to run them?

Re the article and the accusation NYC looks like a third world country. It is a third world country: planned economy, high taxes and welfare, govt rule of private life with exemptions for the connected.; 12/29/10, 10:22 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Bloomberg asked for patience.

"This storm is not like any other we've had to deal with," he said. "We are doing everything we canthink of, working as hard as wecan."

Baloney. There have been plenty of worse storms. Just because the didn't occur during your short little life span, doesn't mean they didn't happen.

I live in midtown, and the day after the storm I couldnt' buy milk because most stores were closed, and there were no deliveries to the stores that were open

Boo hoo. Maybe you should be better prepared. You probably have no more than 2 or 4 days of food in your place either. What are you going to do when the Zombie attack occurs???

However, to be fair to the guys trying to plow in NYC. There isn't any place to plow the snow to. Unlike rural areas where I am, where you can just plow the snow over to the side of the road, heap it up into the middle of the road to create a tunnel effect, or off into a field....the streets in NYC are clogged with cars and there is no side of the road.; 12/29/10, 10:25 AM
Scott M said...: What are you going to do when the Zombie attack occurs???

This is an red herring. If you live in a major metro, it doesn't matter how much food you've got stashed...you need to get out while the first outbreaks are being recorded or you're most likely going to be someone's brain pate.

If you're in the burbs or further out, being able to hunker down for a week or so to see if it's going global is advisable, but not downtown.; 12/29/10, 10:29 AM
Anonymous said...: 1700 plows... (which I think is the record number of plows being used for a snowstorm).

Truck plows are effective up to about 6-8 inches. Anything more requires heavy equipment, such as payloaders and bulldozers.

And much of the snow has now turned into solid rock. They'll need jackhammers to break it out.; 12/29/10, 10:38 AM
Big Mike said...: There isn't any place to plow the snow to.

What about loading it into dump trucks and dumping it into the East River?; 12/29/10, 10:47 AM
Scott M said...: And much of the snow has now turned into solid rock. They'll need jackhammers to break it out.

What they really need is some o' that global warming I keep hearin' 'bout.; 12/29/10, 10:47 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: What about loading it into dump trucks and dumping it into the East River?

Of course, but very time consuming and you can still hear the people whinnng about "their" streets not being plowed/cleared.

Also. What about all that snow melting in the river and flooding the city when the river rises. (Kidding!!!....Not serious here)

Seriously though, how did we possibly survive when there were larger storms and all we had were horse drawn vehicles, not nasty global warming diesel equipment to haul the snow away??? I guess we all died. The end.; 12/29/10, 10:55 AM
Phil 314 said...: This is reminiscent of some Chicago mayor 20 years ago who didn't

Mike Bilandic. I was in Med School there at the time. What did in the Mayor (besides being Hizzoner's successor but without the charisma) was his demand that people get their cars off the street and into the designated and plowed parking lots so the streets could be cleared.

When a local news crew showed video of the unplowed designated parking lots that was the beginning of the end for Mike.

(and as previously alluded to, his successor Jane Byrne was not much better. She was also undone by the press when they revealed how tough it really was for her when she moved into Cabrini Green.); 12/29/10, 11:14 AM
Phil 314 said...: And Mayor Bloomberg does seem to have a thin skin.; 12/29/10, 11:15 AM
Phil 314 said...: And as for Mayor McNichol (was living in Denver at that time)

it was just time

(15 years)

And then we got Federico "Imagine a Great City" Pena; 12/29/10, 11:18 AM
The Musket said...: We got some snow in Dixie on Christmas Day, a nice thin coat of ice on the roads -- we just lit up the fireplace and waited until it melted the next day.

Seriously - when we lived in the greater metropolitan area of NYC - dump trucks carried the snow to PA. Also - do you really have to have milk stockpiled?? I never understood that. I wonder if all that white snow made people want to drink more milk.

I grew up in Iowa during the 'Global Cooling' years of the 70s. We did get snowed in for days on several occasions. Never ran out of milk. Kids were able to make fairly good money shoveling sidewalks - an era of entrepreneurship gone by?; 12/29/10, 11:37 AM
MadisonMan said...: They'll need jackhammers to break it out.

They'll just need a warm day or two, with rain. Coming up!; 12/29/10, 11:53 AM
Peter Hoh said...: If, prior to the storm, you could get all the cars off one side of every street, then plows could be much more quick and effective.

Plowing 20 inches when there are cars parked on both sides of every street? Fuhgeddabbad it.; 12/29/10, 12:17 PM
jamboree said...: God, (laughing), they're such hyperbolic, paranoid, clueless narcissists - still.

"The whole world is laughing that the greatest city in the world cannot manage to clear the streets. New York today looks like a Third World country."

The "whole world" could give a shit, really, nor do most of them, especially under age 40, think of NYC as the "Greatest City in the World." That designation has been out since 9/11 because in light of the financial repercussions on the US economy, other cities have risen across the globe, not just in the West.

NYC no longer has the vibrant, creative, ethnic charm it once did - it's just a $ and power center now, and if that isn't holding up, people will and can go elsewhere.; 12/29/10, 12:28 PM
Big Mike said...: As so often happens, Jim Treacher gets right to the point.; 12/29/10, 12:39 PM
Big Mike said...: @peter hoh, thanks for giving me the correct spelling of "fuhgeddabbad."

;-); 12/29/10, 12:40 PM
jr565 said...: Dust Bunny wrote:
Boo hoo. Maybe you should be better prepared. You probably have no more than 2 or 4 days of food in your place either. What are you going to do when the Zombie attack occurs???

I'm not the one complaining. I recognize that I'm not going to get milk the day after the storm. I was frankly happy that there was no traffic on the street. By the same token shouldn't those complaining about how they can't get out of their houses similarly not complain? They should, based on past snow storms of this magnitude that blocked off streets for days, similarly have recongized that the city can't get to them immediately and make alternat plans.; 12/29/10, 1:05 PM
Bartender Cabbie said...: all those taxes our countrymen pay in NYC and they couldn't even plow the streets. Pathetic.; 12/29/10, 1:48 PM
Michael said...: I love the snow wars in Manhattan. I have spent many lovely snowy afternoons watching the snow moved to the sidewalks and the merchants moving it to the streets. The back and forth creates a splendid sooty colored sludge that is difficult to discern as snow or dirty water. The locals know but the tourists very often do not and they step squarely in the nasty half frozen puddles. Very amusing.; 12/29/10, 2:00 PM
Blue@9 said...: NYC should elect Cory Booker--that guy's showing what real public service is all about.; 12/29/10, 2:06 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Big Mike -- I got it wrong in more ways than one.

Google to the rescue: fuggedaboutit seems to be the agreed upon spelling.; 12/29/10, 4:20 PM
Terrye said...: People were just like this after Katrina...they expect the government to come in with the big men and the big machines and make all the messy stuff go away.

Back in the day when most people performed some sort of physical labor in the course of their lives they had a better idea of how long it takes to do things, anything, that requires real effort.

Now people just seem to think that elves are supposed to come out and night and voila! snow all gone.; 12/29/10, 4:23 PM
Scott M said...: People were just like this after Katrina...they expect the government to come in with the big men and the big machines and make all the messy stuff go away

Not all people. Not even all poor people. But there was a healthy number of people after Katrina, and the dome crowd probably contained more than their share, that were so inured with government support that they literally couldn't conceive of any other way to go.; 12/29/10, 4:27 PM
jr565 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/29/10, 5:54 PM
jr565 said...: Bartender Cabbie wrote:
all those taxes our countrymen pay in NYC and they couldn't even plow the streets. Pathetic.

They did plow streets,just not all streets.
But you know, bartender cabbie, you cabbies are similarly inept since there are fares that you do not pick up. How many people are waiting for cabs and you guys just don't get there, so they have to take alternate transportation? Being a new yorker there have been plenty of times when I've wanted to take a cab, but you guys just weren't around. So you are similarly pathetic. you couldn't even pick up a simple fare.
Why couldn't you have been in more than one place at a time, why couldn't you bypass the traffic jams and get to all passengers, why aren't there enough cabs on the street to handle every single cab request. Surely you should be able to handle such simple requests.; 12/29/10, 5:56 PM
jr565 said...: all those hikes in the cab fare and we're still stuck with crappy service and traffic jams. Pathetic.; 12/29/10, 5:57 PM
Joe said...: But he is taking care of those damn donuts, so lighten up!; 12/29/10, 9:11 PM
damikesc said...: When one behaves as a mini-fascist as the Nurse has done, people expect you to at least get stuff done.

But, alas, even Mussolini couldn't make the trains run on time.; 12/30/10, 6:58 AM
CatherineM said...: The snow never turned to ice, it was light and fluffy and if they kept up on plowing since Sunday it wouldn't have been a problem. We have seen worse and have had better service.

There were service problems/no service on most subway lines because, guess what, the cars are stored in those outer boroughs. Above ground.

You can't "move all the cars" off the road. There is no space for them. However, you are not allowed to park on a "snow route" and I think all of those cars should be ticketed.

When you park on a "tertiary" streets (side streets, not avenues) in a large city like this, you have driveways to dig out, sidewalks and the roads. There are no yards to put the snow - 2 feet of it. I park a few blocks away on a block where the garages are behind the houses so there is that much less to dig out of.

People did end up plowing their own blocks, but we paid for snow removal. It's in the budget, It's already paid for.

I have stores of food, don't need to leave or dig out my car (what's the point as the space I dig will be used by someone else), but if an ambulance can't reach me in an emergency, that's a problem. Is it whining then?; 12/31/10, 12:15 AM
Trooper York said...: Hey don't hate on all New Yorkers for a few that were whining.

There was no snow in Turc and Caicos.; 1/1/11, 1:25 PM
Anonymous said...: The snow never turned to ice, it was light and fluffy and if they kept up on plowing since Sunday it wouldn't have been a problem. We have seen worse and have had better service.
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