I’ve been thinking through the response to the recent snowstorm in comparison with “the big one” in 1996. That storm is down the list from the point of view of Central Park, but it hit Brooklyn much harder. There was 30 inches on the table in my back yard according to a tape measure, before the windstorm (as in this storm) knocked all the snow from the rooftops down into the yards and streets.
The good news is that as I remember it (MSM organizations have morgues and should be able to make these comparisons more easily) subway service was restored and my street was plowed 24 hours and several days earlier in 2010 than it had been in 1996. But the 2010 storm was much worse in one key respect – the lack of emergency access during and in the first 24 hours after the storm, and the number of stuck and abandoned cars, trucks, buses and eventually plows and emergency vehicles littering the streets.
The 1996 storm began on a Sunday. I was at work that morning, as I was working on a big project at City Planning at the time, and left in the early afternoon. I remember it seemed a little scary outside. It was snowing by the time I got home to Windsor Terrace by subway. What pushed up the snow totals in that storm was how long it went on, as it stalled directly over New York City. It snowed all night Sunday, all day Monday, and through Monday night, about 36 hours. It was the first of what has become repeated megastorms, with five of the seven largest snowfall totals in city history since 1996 four of them starting in 2003. Either they are measuring it differently, or something is going on.
The 2010 storm started at noon Sunday, and was over by Monday morning – the same amount of snow in Central Park in half the time. In Brooklyn, we had six to eight inches less than in 1996.
In 1996, the F train station at Prospect Park 15th Street was closed on Tuesday, little was running anywhere on the subway system, and I didn’t make it into work. On Wednesday, they managed to dig out one track at the 4th Avenue stop on the F and run an underground shuttle between there and Church Avenue, but it was packed. My wife and I walked down to 4th Avenue and took the R. The viaduct from 4th Avenue to Carroll Street was cleared, and full service on the F was restored, by Thursday morning, 48 hours after the storm ended. Then, as now, service on the Brighton and Sea Beach lines (Q, N in Brooklyn) took much longer to restore. As I recall, the Flushing Line was out a long time too back in 1996.
This week, F service was once again cut off for the first 24 hours after the storm, but I was able to take the walk down to 4th Avenue and take the R to work on Monday – right after the storm ended and 24 hours earlier than a comparable point in the 1996 aftermath. I took the 2/3 home to Grand Army Plaza and walked from there. On Tuesday morning the viaduct had been cleared and the F was running (though packed, as the F and D were the only trains running from southern Brooklyn). The Flushing line was also running. Once again, this level of service arrived 24 hours earlier than it had in 1996.
Today the Brighton and Sea Beach lines are still out, so I’m worried about being crush loaded if more people try to get to work. Hopefully they will run more trains than average on the Brighton and West End if the train operators and conductors show up for work.
In 1996, my narrow one-way street was never plowed. I believe Park Slope and Windsor Terrace were the last to be cleared, and it took construction equipment to do it, as the snow was too deep to plow. It was not cleared for a week – I didn’t move the car for a few weeks. However, wide streets nearby such as 10th Avenue, 11th Avenue, Prospect Park Southwest, etc. were cleared continually as I recall. So there was emergency access one half block from my house at all times.
In 2010, I came home Tuesday night to find my street had just been plowed, about 36 hours after the storm ended. But 10th and 11th Avenues were impassible during the storm, and all day Monday, before being cleared some time Monday night. The only passable streets nearby on Monday morning (based on what I saw on my walk to the R) were Prospect Park West, Prospect Park Southwest, and 9th Street, and even these had a few inches of slush. You didn’t hear the reports of emergency vehicles not being able to get through in 1996, the way you have this time. And I don’t recall seeing abandoned buses and motor vehicles all over the place back then as I did this time.
From my point of view, as someone who doesn’t require the use of a car to get to work or services, the restoration of subway service and the availability of emergency access is more important than having my side street plowed. I wouldn’t drive in any event — there may be no place to put the car when I got somewhere, and no place to put it when I returned. In neighborhoods like mine people should have stayed put during the storm, rather than drive and block the plows.