A plow works to clear snow on Moffat Street near Central Avenue.
Photo by Jonathan Mena for BushwickBK

Residents are still mad about the slow response to Sunday’s blizzard, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not apologizing for the city’s response in what he terms “the biggest effort to clear snow that our City has ever seen.”

As abandoned cars and MTA buses were towed out of the way, the Dept. of Sanitation was able to plow more side streets in Bushwick starting in the early hours of the morning. Parts of Melrose, Troutman, Suydam, and Moffat Streets are confirmed plowed even as the snow begins its slow melt over the next week’s gradually higher temperatures.

Bloomberg pointed out that in this storm, the volume of snow and the whiteout conditions caused many more vehicles to get stuck in the middle of the streets than a normal storm. He made his remarks at a press conference held at the city’s Emergency Management Headquarters in downtown Brooklyn — one of the hardest hit boroughs, according to the mayor.

	This block of Suydam Street was plowed by Tuesday morning, while others had not been. (Jeremy Sapienza/BushwickBK)

In a normal work week, the response might have been worse, the mayor said. “Fortunately, this is a quiet business week, so there is some mitigation to that problem.”

The Parks Dept. has moved their plows and other machines onto the streets, adding 198 vehicles to Sanitation’s 1,700 plows, as NYPD corralled some 100 tow trucks to dislodge stuck cars. Even the city’s graffiti removal trucks are outfitted with plows, said the mayor.

Compounding the problem, by the time the plows reached many streets the snow had become icy and compacted. Troutman Street resident Sarah Daniel told BushwickBK a plow was struggling its way down her block at 2am on Wednesday. “In the 20 minutes I’ve been awake it seems to only have made four feet progress,” she said. “Slow going.”

A Sanitation press release in November featured the department’s chief bragging about the city’s preparedness for snow.

“All Sanitation personnel are gearing up for another winter that may bring heavy snowstorms,” said Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty, “but the Department will be prepared whether only an inch or mounds of snow hit New York City.”

Garbage collection and alternate side parking regulations remain suspended.

On the travel front, after several days of interruptions and slow service, the MTA says that most trains are running with “good service,” but they said this yesterday while L trains were running at 15-minute intervals in extremely crowded conditions. Most Bushwick-serving bus routes are out of service, including the B13, B20, B38, B47, B52, B60, Q55, and Q58. Other routes are suffering delays and detours.