New York blizzard: Residents asked to be patient amid chaos

NEW YORK - Authorities are doing all they can to clear streets of snow and abandoned vehicles, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said as he appealed to the residents to “be patient”, amid chaos arising out of a major blizzard that hit the city.

Bloomberg said Tuesday that the blizzard clean-up across the city continues — assuring New Yorkers that the sanitation department is “working long and hard” to plow streets in the outer boroughs, the New York Post reported.

“It’s a bad situation,” he said during a news conference Wednesday morning in Brooklyn, one of the hardest hit parts of the city.

Bloomberg defended the city’s response and called on the residents to “be patient” — trying to reassure New Yorkers, especially those in the outer boroughs, that plows will clear streets over the next 24 hours.

I’m angry, too,” he said when asked that residents are upset with the city’s clean-up effort. “This storm is not like any other.”

Meanwhile, the people in the city braved the snow for a second straight day as commuters attempted to go to work following the Sunday’s big blizzard.

While the city was still digging out of the paralysing snow, delays continued to plague buses and subways as more people attempted to get to work.

Buses have been stranded since Sunday as the city tries to plow streets after 20 inches fell between Sunday night and Monday morning. Some 300 buses remain stranded in the snow.

After spending two days tossing and turning on airport floors, thousands of travellers spent Tuesday morning boarding flights as the airlines try and schedule flights that had been delayed out of Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports.

New York’s three regional airports opened for business again Monday evening after the storm dumped more than 50 cm of snow on the region and shut down transport.

Aviation authorities said that flights were delayed at John F. Kennedy, Laguardia and Newark airports. The major Boston airport was also opened again.

More than 6,000 flights were cancelled during the 24-hour blizzard. Wind gusts of more than 110 km per hour continued to play havoc with snow-clearing efforts.

According to the daily, the storm was New York City’s sixth-worst since record-keeping began in 1869, said Adrienne Leptich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A February 2006 storm dropped 26.9 inches of snow on Central Park, breaking the previous record, set in 1947, by half an inch.

“We are trying to get to every street as fast as we can, as safely as we can,” Bloomberg said.

The mayor said too many people abandoned their vehicles when the storm first hit Sunday morning and that 911 was deluged with calls that were not real emergencies.

“So far, the New York Police Department (NYPD) and authorized tow trucks have removed approximately 1,000 vehicles from the Van Wyck, Gowanus and Cross Bronx Expressways alone. We know that many streets still have not been plowed — and I saw that myself … when I was visiting small businesses in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island,” said Bloomberg.