Mayor Eric Adams: Thank
you. Thanks so much for everyone being here, and I really want to thank the
team. I started out this morning being briefed; actually, last week [the] chief
of staff told me we were looking to have this weather come in and the team
started to prepare. There [have] been various shifts around 6:40, this morning
we got an update and immediately started to make the necessary adjustments.
Communicated with the chancellor this morning as well, and he started the
operation of dealing with remote learning for our children.
You know, we've been fortunate.
You know, let's be clear, we have not had any significant snowfall for quite
some time; in fact, it was amazing how little salt we had to use last year. But
you know, the time has come, you know, Mother Nature does what she wants to do.
And I really want to thank the commissioner, Commissioner Tisch and her team
for their just rapid response and coordination with all the agencies involved.
We're expecting snow across the
city tonight and into tomorrow. The current forecast calls for light rain
beginning around midnight and transitioning to snow tomorrow morning. We expect
at least five to eight inches now, we could get more. As the forecast continues
to shift, we will continue to notify New Yorkers.
It's going to be low visibility,
high wind gusts ending by early afternoon as well as up to two feet of coastal
flooding along vulnerable shorelines. We're taking this storm extremely,
extremely serious. We want New Yorkers to be prepared and we want New Yorkers
to do the same.
We expect slippery roads and
limited visibility, and so we're strongly encouraging New Yorkers, if you don't
have to go out, stay home. And please use public transportation, we want to
minimize the number of vehicles on the road so that our apparatus and vehicles
can actually deal with the removal of snow and make our movement in the city
more feasible.
Our team has also been
coordinating closely with the governor's team, Governor Hochul's team, in
advance of the storm. All relevant city agencies have been activated and
preparations are underway.
Salt spreaders and plows are ready to go; and again, just really want to
commend DSNY, the entire team. They're ready, they're prepared, and the
commissioner is going to coordinate their efforts with our other city agencies.
And so we're doing everything in our power to keep New Yorkers safe. We want
New Yorkers to do everything in their power to continue to be safe by, again,
staying off the road, and signing up for NotifyNYC to keep updated on winter
weather.
City services will continue to be
available for New Yorkers tomorrow, and we will continue to serve the city. We
will not be conducting any outdoor events; and again, our public schools are
closed tomorrow. They will, actually we're doing remote learning. It's going to
be a remote learning day. That's one of the things that came out of Covid‑19,
we could continue the educational process of our children so they will be
learning remotely.
Alternate side of the street
parking has been canceled for tomorrow, and we do have a Code Blue has been
issued for unsheltered New Yorkers. If you see someone in need, please call 311
or 911 as appropriate; and check on neighbors, as always, to make sure that we
can be good neighbors for each other. I know New Yorkers will be ready. We'll
be ready, but no matter what, stay warm.
We have an election tomorrow.
Poll sites are open. The poll sites for the elections will be open in Queens
and in the Bronx. Commissioner?
Commissioner Tisch: Thank
you, Mayor Adams. You're going to get a more complete weather briefing from
Commissioner Iscol in a few, but I will give you some of the highlights that
the mayor has already touched on.
We are expecting winter weather
in New York City tomorrow. It will begin as rain around midnight and it will
rain for a few hours. We expect the transition to snow to happen between 4:00
and 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.
There can be periods of very
heavy snow, so we're expecting one to two inches of snow per hour for several
hours in the morning; so as the mayor said, staying off the roads is very
important. We expect the storm to taper off in the afternoon. Right now it's
looking like it'll be between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.
And of course, all of this is
subject to change. We have seen this storm change a lot over the past 24 hours,
so we're going to continue to keep our eye on it and brief New Yorkers as
necessary.
So, beginning on our midnight shift tonight, thousands of New York City
sanitation workers will be putting salt on every street, every highway, every
bike lane in the city, and we will be prepared to plow every street, every
highway and every bike lane as soon as accumulations hit two inches or
more.
The operation will continue until
all streets are clear, which will likely be hours after the last flakes fall.
We have a huge fleet of snow fighting equipment at our disposal, over 700 salt
spreaders and over 2,000 plows.
Gone are the days of primary,
secondary and tertiary streets for salt spreading and plowing purposes; now
every street in the city is on a route, and every route can be dispatched at
the same time. This is what the mayor has referred to as "plowing
equity" in New York City.
A reminder to New Yorkers that a
plowed street does not immediately show blacktop, so please be patient as our
plows come through and let them do their thing. Once plowing operations cease,
we will turn our attention to clearing pedestrian infrastructure like
crosswalks and curb cuts.
Now we have a number of things
working in our favor this year in New York City. First, we have the highest
uniform headcount of sanitation workers that this department has seen in over
two decades. We have also made substantial investments in our fleet, including
our snow fighting vehicles. We spent about half a billion dollars over the past
year on the upgrades to our fleet.
And we also have new GPS
technology, it's called BladeRunner 2.0 that allows us to surgically manage our
salt spreading and our plowing operations. So, our supervisors in the field
from their smartphones and us at headquarters, we can see every street in the
city, what has been plowed, what has been salted, what we may have missed, and
then we can direct resources accordingly.
To aid our operations tomorrow,
we are asking New Yorkers to stay off the roads. Our salt spreaders and our
plows can cover a whole lot more ground a lot faster if there are not other
vehicles in their way. To that end, we have canceled alternate side parking for
tomorrow, although meters remain in effect.
An important reminder to property
owners. While we got the streets, we got the highways and we got the bike
lanes, property owners are responsible for clearing snow and ice from the
sidewalks. We saw in the last two snow events in New York City that the streets
were very clear, but the sidewalks were pretty treacherous.
We don't like to enforce these...
We don't like to issue summonses and do enforcement, but we are prepared to
enforce these very basic safety rules in New York City tomorrow to make sure
that our sidewalks are clear and are passable. I am now going to turn it over
to our commissioner of Emergency Management, Zach Iscol.
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