Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Bloomberg Failed Miserably During The Storm

The value-added criticism is pouring in for the Little Mayor Who Couldn't During The Snowstorm:

Hours after the snow stopped, countless streets around the city were unplowed - causing a dangerous backlog in emergency responses and drawing outrage.

The 911 system was overwhelmed and sources said it took nearly an hour at the height of the storm for ambulances respond to strokes and heart attacks. A Brooklyn woman in labor waited four hours for help.

The FDNY said that as of late Monday afternoon, it had a backlog of 1,300 less urgent requests that weren't answered due to a deluge of calls and impassable roads.

Still, Mayor Bloomberg insisted the city had it all under control.

"There's no reason for everybody to panic," he said as criticism poured in. "Our city is doing exactly what you'd want it do."

Across the city, buses and cars were sidelined in drifts and even snowplows were frozen into place. The mayor said only Mother Nature was to blame.

"Snow removal is being handled by the best professionals in the business," he said defensively.

"Snow fell at a furious rate of 2 or 3 inches an hour and that really presents a serious challenge to snow plowing efforts."

His excuses didn't fly where plows seemed as rare as spaceships, mainly the outer boroughs.

"Obviously something went astray this time," Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz said. "Our side streets in every part of Brooklyn are frankly not touched. Many of our main streets haven't been plowed and salted."

By afternoon, the condemnation was mounting.

State Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) who slammed the removal effort as a "colossal failure" that put "countless lives at risk."

He compared the blizzard to the 1969 storm that nearly destroyed the career of Mayor John Lindsay. Bloomberg may have had that kind of political fallout in mind as he hastily scheduled photo ops in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens.

City Council Sanitation Committee Chairwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn) said she will hold hearings on the mess, saying, "It appears there are not enough men and women representing sanitation and ... EMS on the ground."

It looks like most people do not think Bloomberg added too much value to the city yesterday.

But I dunno what people are complaining about - look how well Mayor Bloomberg's street looked this morning.

Everybody else, especially people in the outer boroughs, are frankly not as important as people who live in Bloomberg's UES neighborhood.

If people want to be better taken care of in this city, they need to move to Mayor Bloomberg's neighborhood and become friend's with Cathie Black.

Otherwise, as the Mayor of Accountability likes to say, "Deal With it!"

5 comments:

  1. In February Bloomberg was praised for his quick clean up on a school day. Since he thinks he believes in children first. Does that mean adults second or last when there is no public school.

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  2. The dude is a blizzard of incompetence and arrogance, to boot.

    May he be buried under the just criticism of middle and working class citizens across the boroughs.

    Next up? Hopefully, a state judge's Cathie Black smackdown.

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  3. Loved your reference to "the Little Mayor Who Couldn't." How apt and very amusing!

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  4. First anon, I based a post on your comment. It's a great point - I bet this would have been handled better of school had been in session. Bloomberg hates giving days off!

    Pogue, I hope this flurry of criticism continues to snowball - he really has had a terrible third term - first Black, then CityTime, now Snowmageddon 2010. Not a third term to base a presidential bid on, is it?

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