Office of Councilmember Brad Lander

December 2010 Blizzard Cleanup Report

39th Council District, Brooklyn

Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope,
Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Borough Park

January 9, 2011
Introduction

On December 26, 2010, New York City was hit with a large-scale blizzard, with 14–24 inches of
snow falling rapidly on the city, amidst powerful winds. As is well-known, the City of New
York’s response to this storm was deeply inadequate. Many streets were not cleared for days.

The New York City Council is holding hearings to examine why the City’s cleanup efforts were so
much worse than in past storms, and what must be done to address these failures going
forward. The first hearing will take place on Monday, January 10th, with the Deputy Mayor for
Operations, the Commissioners of Sanitation, the Office of Emergency Management,
Transportation, and FDNY/EMS scheduled to appear. There will be community-based hearings
in each borough, including one in Brooklyn on January 19th.

To prepare for these hearings, the office of New York City Councilmember Brad Lander
prepared this report to analyze the response in the neighborhoods of the 39th District.1 Over
the course of the following week, the office of Councilmember Brad Lander received nearly 400
communications from constituents about snow removal, primarily that their block had not been
plowed within a reasonable period of time. The last blocks in the 39th District were not plowed
until early New Year’s morning, nearly 6 days after the storm.

The goal of this report is to summarize and analyze major issues that arose in the
neighborhoods of the 39th District, so they can be further investigated and addressed in the
Council hearings and beyond. The report is based on:

• An analysis of the 392 communications our office received in the week following the
blizzard, as well as similar data gathered online by another source;
• The work that our office did to address those complaints in communicating with both
City agencies and constituents;
• Fieldwork observations by staff, the councilmember, and constituents;
• Dozens of conversations post-cleanup, with residents of blocks that were not plowed for
days (including a meeting with residents of a Kensington building where a veteran died a
possibly-preventable death on Monday, 12/27), with key neighborhood institutions (e.g.
hospitals), with sanitation workers (at a field visit to a sanitation garage), and other
members of the public; and
• A review of news reports that describe incidents in the district during the storm and its
aftermath.

1
Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, and Borough Park

2
Constituent Communications/Complaints during the Cleanup

Over the five days following the storm – Monday, December 27 through Friday, December 31 –
the office of Councilmember Lander received 392 communications about snow removal (370
were from residents of the 39th district). Staff took aggressive action to address these concerns
(described below), and also recorded the calls and follow-up in a spreadsheet, which forms the
basis of our analysis of the local response.

Complaints by Type
• 88% were complaints that their street had not been plowed.
• The remaining 13% of requests were about unshoveled sidewalks or crosswalks,
abandoned cars preventing plowing, or subways/transit facilities that were inaccessible.

Complaints by Type

Sidewalk not
shoveled
4%

General Inquiry
3%
Street not Other
plowed 12%
88%

Bus stop/subway Abandoned car

entrance not 2%
shoveled
2%

• Requests for street plowing were more or less evenly split by community district, after
the amount of each community district in the 39th District is taken into account. The
39th City Council District includes portions of Community Board 6 (Cobble Hill, Carroll
Gardens, Park Slope), Community Board 7 (Windsor Terrace), and Community Board 12
(Kensington, northern Borough Park). 2

2
The service areas for Sanitation Districts share the same boundaries and numbers as Community Boards.

3
 • However, the percentage of complaints about unplowed streets dramatically increased
from Community District 12 (which includes Kensington & Borough Park) as the week
went on. District 12 composed only 21% of complaints on Tuesday, but rose to 60% of
calls on Thursday and Friday.

Snow Requests per 6-hour Period by Community District

100% 160

90% 146 District 6

Park Slope 140
% of Requests per Community District

80% Cobble Hill

Carroll Gardens
120
70%

100

Total Requests
60% District 7
Windsor Terrace
50% 80

40% 72 60
52
30%
40
20%
District 12
35 Kensington
23 Borough Park 20
10%
13 12
4 3 4
0% 0
12a-12a 12-6a 6a-12p 12-6p 6p-12a 12-6a 6a-12p 12-6p 6p-12a 12a-12a
Mon 12/27 Tue 12/28 Wed 12/29 Thu 12/30

CB12 CB7 CB6 Total Requests

Complaints by Method and Time/Day Made

Complaints were made to our
office by phone (over 120 calls)
and online (over 260 online
request, via e-mail and an online
web-form). As a result of the lack
of subway service on Monday,
December 27, only two
employees were able to get to
the office on Monday. Three
staff worked the remainder of
the week. On Tuesday
afternoon, as the magnitude of
the failed response became
increasingly apparent, the office
put a complaint web-form online,
and sent out an e-blast to our list
of nearly 9,000 people.

4
Staff Response/Assistance to Constituents

Following up on the hundreds of complaints received, staff:

• Communicated with DSNY’s community affairs office, DSNY local garages, the Office of
Emergency Management, the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, the Parks Department,
local police precincts and City Hall advisors directly.
• Made several dozen follow up phone calls and personal emails to constituents to
monitor the situation.
• Made a number of site visits throughout the district to see field conditions first-hand.

Follow-up action with City agencies included:

• Lists for cleanup requests were sent to DSNY, OEM and the Mayor’s CAU
o Mid-day Tuesday
o Mid-day Wednesday
o Throughout the day Thursday
o Friday morning
• Specific requests for car removal were called into the 66th and 76th police precincts. The
precincts appear to have been able to respond within a matter of a few hours to most
towing requests when made directly.
• Specific requests for still-neglected blocks were made to DSNY garages 6 & 12 on
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
• A request to the Department of Parks & Recreation on Wednesday to fully clear the
pathways along Greenwood Playground that are the main approach to the southern
entrance to the Ft. Hamilton Pkwy F train station revealed that many DPR workers had
been detailed to DSNY at the request of City Hall during the recovery. The pathway to
the train was eventually cleared on Wednesday.
• On Thursday an abandoned National Grid truck that had been parked in a moving lane
against the flow of traffic on Ave C since the storm ended was removed very promptly
after we informed National Grid staff of the situation.
• Repeated calls were made to the Mayor’s office throughout Thursday and Friday, until
all blocks were cleared.

5
Summary of Major Issues during Cleanup in 39th District

Clearing of Major Streets

By the end of the day Tuesday, most major streets & avenues in the district were plowed and
passable for emergency vehicles.

There are several notable standouts that were not addressed:

• Henry Street, which is a key street for emergency vehicle movements, as it used
frequently by the 76th Precinct and Long Island College Hospital. There were several
stuck cars on Henry Street, including a report of a stuck DSNY plow truck, that were
preventing plowing until late Wednesday evening.
• A section of McDonald Avenue between Cortelyou and Ave C was not visited by a
snowplow until Thursday; the street was cleared by the private businesses on the block
on Wednesday.
• Ave C, Cortelyou, Ditmas Ave & Ave F, all major east-west streets in Kensington were
unplowed until Friday.

Ditmas Ave at E 7th Street remained unplowed as of Thursday mid-day.

Insufficient Priority Given to Vital Access Routes

• Access to hospitals: Access to hospitals is obviously a vital top priority. However, key
routes to the three hospitals in the 39th District (Sixth Street for Methodist, Henry Street
for Long Island College Hospital, and numerous local streets near Maimonides)
remained unplowed for all of Monday, and in some cases until Wednesday.
 • Safe access to transit: Safe access to subway stations must be a top priority during and
following a storm, when a higher percentage of people will rightly use transit rather
than drive. While getting the subway system up and running after a major storm is
rightly the first priority of the MTA, ensuring safe pedestrian access to the stations must
be a close second. However, our office received several reports that pedestrian
entrances, and pathways to stations, were insufficiently cleared – in particular, the Fort
Hamilton Parkway and Carroll Street F stations.

A particular concern in the 39th District is the area around the Fort Hamilton Parkway F
train station, including the entrances to the station and the pedestrian bridges crossing
the Prospect Expressway. The highway divides the area and the small slivers of parkland
around the right-of-way have led to conflicts over agency responsibility. In response to
issues in the snowstorm early in 2010, our office convened a site visit in May 2010 of the
responsible agencies— DPR, NYC Transit, and DOT to sort out who was responsible for
each area. The ramp to the Fort Hamilton Parkway F train was reported to have been
shoveled by Tuesday evening. Pedestrian bridges over the Prospect Expressway that are
DOT’s responsibility were cleared by early Wednesday morning. DPR-controlled paths
were partially shoveled early Wednesday and fully shoveled by late on Wednesday
afternoon. Parks workers were reportedly detailed to Sanitation during the initial phase
of the cleanup, preventing the cleanup from being prioritized appropriately.

Especially Poor Cleanup in Kensington & Borough Park (Brooklyn District 12)

Based on analysis of complaints to our office, there was a clear lack of service to Kensington
and Borough Park, despite the fact that our office repeatedly brought this to the attention to
officials at DSNY, OEM and the Mayor’s CAU.

Streets in District 12 remained unplowed for several days longer than in District 6 or District 7,
and complaints from District 12 made up an increasingly large portion of complaints to our
office as the week went on. Many streets in Borough Park were not fully plowed until
Thursday.

It was not until our office sent photographs of the situation in Kensington on Thursday that the
major East-West streets noted above and the side streets (E 2nd - E 9th Streets) began to be
cleared. Some sections of these side streets, specifically some blocks of E 7th, E 8th and E 9th,
were not visited by plows until early on Saturday, January 1st.

7
 Percent of Complaints by Community District by Day

100%

90%
CB6
CB6 33%
80% 39%

CB6
70% 57%
CB6 CB7
75% 7%
60%
CB7
50% 16%

40%

CB7
CB12
30% 21%
60%
CB12
20% 45%

CB12
CB12
10% 25%
21%

0%
Mon 12/27 Tue 12/28 Wed 12/29 Thu/Fri 12/30-31

In addition to complaints directly to our office, the delayed response in DSNY District 12 is
revealed by analysis of data from an independent, online “crowd-sourcing” map posted during
the storm by Brooklyn resident, Raul Rothblatt, at brooklynsnowremoval2010.crowdmap.com,
which included 152 reports of snow removal issues in Council District 39.3

Data provided by Raul Rothblatt from Brooklynsnowremoval2010.crowdmap.com

3
There were a total of 456 reports of unplowed streets, abandoned vehicles, and reports of the time that streets
were plowed made to brooklynsnowremoval2010.crowdmap.com. This analysis includes only the unplowed street
reports that were in District 39.

8
There were allegations that four DSNY supervisors shirked their duties in Kensington by holing
up in their department cars overnight and even drinking while on-duty.4 This along, with other
allegations of improper behavior, must be investigated. Our office was encouraged to learn
that the District 12 Sanitation supervisor was sanctioned and reassigned by the Department of
Sanitation in the week following the storm. However, a full investigation must be conducted.

Remainder of District (Brooklyn Districts 6 & 7)

Many side streets throughout Park Slope and Carroll Gardens were unplowed until Tuesday
evening or Wednesday morning, with most finished Wednesday mid-day. Most tertiary streets
in CB 6 & 7, such as the smaller “Place blocks” in Carroll Gardens, the blocks between Degraw
and Kane in Cobble Hill, the “Place blocks” in Windsor Terrace like Fuller Place, or cul-de-sac
streets like Temple Court were only cleared late Wednesday night. There were a few blocks –
including Garfield Place between 5th and 6th Avenue in Park Slope, and Warren Street between
Court and Clinton Streets – that were inexplicably unplowed until Friday.

Stuck & Abandoned Vehicles

There were still many abandoned vehicles, including MTA buses, in the district throughout
Tuesday. Most MTA buses were moved by the end of Tuesday evening. Abandoned vehicles
remained throughout Kensington on Thursday and Friday. In some cases on side streets, cars
were towed, but a plow would not follow soon afterwards, and a new car would get stuck in the
same spot. On E 2nd Street, between Cortelyou and Avenue C, this happened at least three
times, resulting in the block not getting plowed until Friday.

Lack of Plowing Coordination

Discussions in the field with DSNY workers revealed that plows are dispatched with a specific
“route sheet” – a series of streets to plow in a specific order. If a plow gets stuck or encounters
an obstacle (in this case, usually a stuck vehicle), it is up to the driver to determine how to
complete the route. While the driver may communicate his condition back to the base, it is
unclear how the route sheets are adjusted, and how it becomes clear to the garage or
Sanitation Department which streets have been actually cleared of snow.

Many constituents across our district and elsewhere observed plows going down fully-plowed
streets with the plow shields down repeatedly on Tuesday and Wednesday.5 In other cases, we
received numerous complaints of trucks going down unplowed streets with their plow shields
up, even on Thursday – so it could be said that the street “saw” a plow, but not that the street
had actually been plowed. This indicated that while garage supervisors might know that they

4
Blau, Reuven and Brad Hamilton. “Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses” New York Post. Jan 2, 2011.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK
5
This was observed on streets that would not make any sense for plows to be traveling down to reach other
unplowed streets.

9
directed a plow to go to a particular street, but they may not know the condition of the street
or whether it has actually been plowed.

The lack of information about actual conditions on the ground apparently led to a high-ranking
DSNY official to take an NYPD helicopter to survey.6 The helicopter was spotted by office staff
around 10:15 am in Kensington and around that time in Borough Park as well.7

EMS Access and Response

It has been noted in media accounts that the City’s 911 call system and EMS response was
overwhelmed by the storm. A 911 operator reported that at one point there were over 1,500
calls on hold. The 911 system is undergoing a $1 billion modernization, but it is behind
schedule, and radio and dispatch equipment is reported to be outdated.8 When ambulances
were dispatched, many got stuck in the snow. As a result, emergency response was delayed in
many cases, including in several possibly-preventable deaths.

One of these possibly-preventable deaths – that of veteran Joel Grossman – took place in the
39th District.9 The Councilmember visited Mr. Grossman’s building (135 Ocean Parkway) and
spoke with neighbors about what happened in the week following the storm.

Mr. Grossman was a 73-year-old veteran, with a history of health problems. He began feeling
sick on the morning of Monday, December 27th. He first called 911 at noon, complaining of
stomach pain (he had a history of ulcers) and kept calling back hourly, but – in the midst of
storm response – 911 operators apparently did not deem his situation life-threatening. At 6
pm, neighbors heard him screaming and called 911. Neighbors continued to call 911 for the
next hour. However, no EMS ambulance arrived.

Around 7 pm, one neighbor directly called Hatzoloh, a private volunteer ambulance service that
serves Kensington and Borough Park (in addition to other neighborhoods). A Hatzoloh
ambulance arrived within 15 minutes. When the ambulance could not traverse the service road
of Ocean Parkway (which had not been plowed), they ran to the building with a stretcher from
Caton Avenue. Unfortunately, it was too late. EMS appears to have arrived sometime after
7:40 pm and Mr. Grossman was pronounced dead at 7:48 pm, due to natural causes from
cardiovascular disease, according to a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner.10

6
McGeehan, Patrick. “Bloomberg Is Criticized on Storm Response as He Tours City Beyond Manhattan” New York
Times. Dec 30, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/nyregion/31snow.html
7
Yeshiva World, Dec 30, 2010. http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/79451/YWN-
Exclusive%3A-NYPD-Chopper-Over-Boro-Park-Checking-For-Unplowed-Streets.html
8
Otterman, Sharon. “‘It Was Hell’: Dispatchers Tell of Flood of 911 Calls During Story” The New York Times. Dec 30,
2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/nyregion/31dispatch.html
9
Ibid. Lemire, Jonathan, Simone Weichselbaum and Joe Kemp. “Elderly Man Dies at Home After Snow Delays
Ambulance Arrival.” New York Daily News. Dec, 30 2010 http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/30/2010-
12-30_elderly_brooklyn_man_dies_at_home_after_snow_delays_ambulance_arrival.html
10
Ibid. Also based on reports to Councilmember Lander from neighbors on Wednesday, January 5, 2011.

10
A Heroic Citizen Response

During the week following the storm, as the inadequate City response left many people
stranded, countless volunteers aided their neighbors in ways large and small. Our office met
Bob Carbone and Jamie Hildalgo, who each made extra efforts to clear street crossings for
pedestrians and helped shovel out their neighbors in Kensington. There were business owners
like Ben Panzer of Empire State Supply who cleared their streets when the City did not.

In Borough Park, several volunteer “chesed” organizations stepped up in remarkable ways to

assist in the response. Hatzoloh, an all-volunteer ambulance service, fielded an extraordinary
response, picking up back-logged calls that the 911 system could not handle (such as Mr.
Grossman). Members used their own vehicles, and worked in larger teams to carry patients
when unplowed roads rendered vehicles unable to reach buildings directly.11 Other
organizations, including Shomrim, Chaveirim, and Yad Ephraim also contributed to the heroic
response, insuring public safety, getting meals to patients where hospitals were short-staffed
due to the storm, and assisting thousands of people during and after the storm.

11
Eller, Sandy. “As City Bungles Snow Cleanup, Communal Organizations Fill Void.” The Jewish Press. Dec 30,
2010. http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/46599/As_City_Bungles_Snow.html

11
Recommendations
While this is a local view of the response, the analysis and experience of our office during this
storm clearly indicate the need for several adjustments in citywide policy to improve response
to the next major snowstorm.

The Council as a whole will be conducting a more complete investigation through several
standing committees and community-based hearings. These hearings, responses to questions
by the Bloomberg Administration, and other follow-up is necessary to investigate questions
such as why a “snow emergency” was not declared, what the chain-of-command was at key
decision-points, etc. However, we can say with confidence that the following issues must be
addressed by the Mayor, based on the response in the 39th District:

1. Investigate DSNY Brooklyn District 12 response

While there have been reassignments within DSNY Brooklyn South command that were
announced the afternoon of January 6, a full accounting of the operations in DSNY Brooklyn
District 12 during and after the storm needs to be conducted. Many of the streets in
Kensington and Borough Park remained unplowed for at least a day after the Mayor promised
that all streets in the City would be plowed, and some remained unplowed until the morning of
Jan 1st. No other area of our district received such poor service.

Cortelyou Road at E 8th Street remained unplowed on Thursday around

10:30am, and vehicles that had been there since before the snowfall
partially blocked the right-of-way.

12
Such an inquiry should seek to answer the following:

• What is the chain of command in District 12 and how did it respond?

• What was the nature of interagency coordination in District 12 and how was it different
from other areas?
• How did DSNY, OEM and City Hall respond when they were repeatedly informed that
large portions of Kensington and Borough Park were unplowed?
• Was District 12 under-resourced in manpower or equipment before the storm? Were
District 12 resources diverted to other areas of the city during the storm or cleanup?
• Were there equipment malfunctions or deferred maintenance that were unique to
District 12?
• Did the nature of supervision of the district garage affect the quality of the response?
• Did labor-management relations play a role in the poor storm response in District 12?
• Did the response during the storm in District 12 affect the post-storm cleanup in a way
that was unique to this garage?
• Was there a disparity in the quality of the response among neighborhoods within
District 12?

If the report reveals that operational adjustments, resource deployment, chain of command
adjustments or further disciplinary action are warranted, they should most certainly be taken.

2. Adopt Technology to Know When a Block is Plowed

There were several pieces of information that seemed to be lacking based on communications
with DSNY and observations of DSNY operations during the storm cleanup:
• Which streets all of the DSNY trucks had actually visited and plowed.
• What streets DSNY had to skip because of stuck vehicles.
• What the actual condition of those streets were (as indicated by plows replowing fully
cleared streets while others nearby remained unplowed).

On January 7, 2010, City Hall announced that 50 trucks in Brooklyn District 14 would be carrying
GPS units as a pilot during the storm predicted for that day (which turned out to be a small
storm).12 This is a good first step. It is essential that this initiative not just serve as an employee
accountability mechanism but also help facilitate the distribution of information about the real-
time conditions of streets to garage supervisors, DSNY management and across the DSNY
bureaucracy.

12
Press Release. “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Updates New Yorkers On Preparations For Upcoming Snow.” Jan 6,
2011.

13
3. Review Equipment and Staffing Levels at Sanitation

Following the storm, the Councilmember visited Sanitation garages and spoke with Sanitation
workers at one of the garages that had performed relatively better during the cleanup, about
their perceptions of the failed cleanup effort. They specifically identified the failure to declare a
snow emergency, many more stranded cars and buses than in past storms, lower staffing levels,
and poor equipment as key issues hampering the cleanup. While they technically had the same
number of plow-drivers, overall staffing levels were lower than in the past – so there was not
available manpower to coordinate stalled vehicle removal, or watch for pedestrians while
major commercial avenues were cleared.

Sanitation workers also reported that poor equipment played a role. They pointed to new,
inferior chains (see photo); newer model trucks that are weaker and lighter than older trucks;
and an adjustment to the “trunnion plate” angle designed to make the plows better for
scraping ice, but reportedly less effective in snow conditions like this blizzard.

Picture taken by Councilmember Lander of old and new snow plow chains,
at a Department of Sanitation garage. The older chains (left) are
substantially thicker, heavier and less slick than the new chains (right) and
therefore far more likely to provide traction in deep snow and ice.

4. Increase Collaboration Between Tow and Plow Operations

One frequent frustration was that when abandoned or stuck vehicles were towed away on
unplowed streets, plows did not often follow in a timely manner. As a result, on some streets,
new vehicles got stuck in the same spot. While DSNY does have one or two tow trucks per
garage, and the NYPD provided additional resources, it is not clear how those resources were
deployed during the storm or how the removal of cars was coordinated with plow operations.

14
5. Prioritize Removal of Snow around Hospitals and Subway Entrances

As noted above, snow removal was not a sufficiently high priority either around 39th District
hospitals (Methodist, Long Island College Hospital, Maimonides) or subway stations.

Roads around hospitals must be a top priority in the first hours of and following a snowstorm.
The City should communicate with all hospitals to determine which key routes were not cleared
quickly, and to insure that these streets receive top priority in future storms.

Our district received several requests for snow removal at the Fort Hamilton Parkway and
Carroll Street F/G train stations. At Fort Hamilton Parkway, there are agency jurisdiction and
resource deployment issues described above. At Carroll Street, it appears that snow removal
by the MTA was initially inadequate as late as Wednesday.

The Department of Parks and Recreation has the responsibility for clearing sidewalks around
park facilities. In some cases, sidewalks that DPR is responsible for are the primary access to
subway entrances. This appears to be the case for about 10% of stations in Southern
Brooklyn.13 DPR must prioritize pathways and entrances to subways for which they have
jurisdiction. These should be cleared before DPR workers are assigned to Sanitation.

While the MTA must prioritize getting its system up and running after a major storm, safe
pedestrian access to the stations must also be the next priority. In cases where the MTA has
jurisdiction over sidewalk and plazas outside subway stations, the agency must remove snow in
these areas at the same time as the actual entrances themselves.

*******

Councilmember Lander looks forward to feedback from members of the public on this report,
and to following up on these issues at the upcoming City Council hearings and beyond. It is
essential that we understand the mistakes that caused the inadequate response, require
accountability for these errors, and identify and correct systemic problems before the next
major snowstorm.

13
9 of 96 stations on the A, B, C, D, F, N, Q, R & Franklin Shuttle trains.

15