Bloomberg's Snowstorm?

To quote Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again. For New York City's youngsters, the recent blizzard that transformed much of the northeast into a winter wonderland just a day after Christmas most likely drew awe and delight. But for New Yorkers old enough to remember when John Lindsay was mayor, the city's less than optimal handling of what has been only the sixth worst snowfall to hit the city is bringing back nothing but unpleasant memories of something that happened a little over four decades ago.

In early February 1969, the United States Weather Bureau glibly predicted some mild winter weather for the week. New Yorkers carried out their affairs with no real concern, expecting nothing more than a little sleet and rain to interfere with their plans. Little did anyone know that on the 9th, a massive blizzard would strike the city with deadly force-- the worst in 18 years. When it was over, some 20 inches of snow blanketed New York City, resulting in thousands of people left stranded on bridges and roads, as well as at major airports. Not surprisingly, the entire city shut down, completely crippled by the huge and unexpected snowfall.

Snow plows were dispatched by the sanitation department to clear the streets. They should have cleaned all of New York City. Instead, Queens was neglected. So while the rest of the city slowly but surely got back on its feet after a few days, Queens lay buried for a week with nary a snow plow in sight, resulting in its residents being reduced to little more than trapped avalanche survivors out in the middle of the Antarctic. As they waited in vain for help, food supplies dwindled, garbage piled up, and desperation rose.

Not even United Nations diplomat Ralph Bunche was spared from the city's neglect. The situation worsening, he sent an impassioned plea to Mayor Lindsay from his Queens home to send a snow plow.

"There are no buses, no taxis, no mail, newspaper or other deliveries, and there have been no trash or garbage collection since last Friday," the diplomat telegrammed. "The shelves of our neighborhood grocer are empty." To punctuate how difficult it was to get around, he finally complained, "As far as getting to the United Nations is concerned, I may as well be in the Alps."

It was clear that the situation in Queens was not only growing intolerable, but damaging Lindsay's public image and political ambitions. In an attempt to mend fences, he made a personal visit to the desperate borough, but his "kind" gesture would not go quite as smoothly as he'd hoped. The commute was fraught with difficulty (the mayor eventually had to switch to four-wheel-drive trucks, as the snow-clogged streets were virtually impossible to pass). And lest he thought Queens residents would welcome him with open arms, he was mistaken. Tired, hungry, distressed, and witness to 42 snowstorm-related fatalities (half of which occurred in their borough alone), the mayor's constituents were out for blood. As he made the rounds, Lindsay was routinely booed, catcalled and insulted, with one woman famously hissing, "Get away, you bum."

The city and Mayor Lindsay's overall handling of the 1969 snowstorm caused such a black eye to an otherwise illustrious political career that New Yorkers sarcastically nicknamed the blizzard "Lindsay's Snowstorm."

Some 41 years later, survivors of that blizzard are seeing some disturbing similarities in the way New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city overall has reacted to this latest storm. Although New York is nowhere near as crippled as it was back in '69, the response has been nothing short of embarrassing. Many side streets throughout the city have yet to be plowed some 24 hours after the first snowflake hit the ground, causing many cars and public buses to become stranded and the streets to be virtually impossible to navigate on foot.

Conditions are so bad that EMS and FDNY personnel have been prevented from getting to emergencies in time, in some cases taking hours to reach their destination. Public transportation and commuter rail service has been all but disrupted, making it that much worse for residents already handicapped by mounds of snow drifts and stranded MTA buses. As if the city and the mayor hasn't suffered enough PR damage, tired and cranky passengers who had to wait seven hours before getting rescued from a malfunctioning A train are now speaking to the press about their ordeal, including a reporter of the Daily News, who posted a detailed account at his newspaper's online site.

Needless to say, New Yorkers have become shocked, if not outraged, by what they consider one of the poorest responses to a snowstorm they have ever seen. Typical of the Mayor's style, Bloomberg reacted to growing public antipathy at a press conference with a nonchalance bordering on dismissiveness.

"The world has not come to an end," he said.

The world may indeed not have come to an end as a result of the latest snowstorm, but for a population becoming increasingly frustrated by a mayor who it feels with each passing day is showing himself to be more a champion of the rich rather than of the middle and working class, a simple act of Mother Nature could mark the end of his political career, much like it did for a certain New York City mayor some 41 years ago.

Sources
Sewell Chan, "Remembering a Storm That Paralyzed the City", New York Times City Blog
Owen Moritz, "Winter of Discontent: Lindsay's Snowstorm, 1969", NY Daily News
Lisa Colangelo, Alison Gendar, and Erin Einhorn, "City Much too Slow to Plow, Critics Say", NY Daily News
Pete Donohue, "Christmas Blizzard of 2010 Snarls New York Mass Tansit During Monday Commute; Roads Buried in Snow", NY Daily News
"FDNY, EMS Response Compromised During Blizzard", Gothamist
Helen Kennedy, "Christmas Blizzard of 2010: Mayor Bloomberg Defends NYC's Response to Winter Storm, Mass Transit", NY Daily News