Post-Christmas Blizzard Hearings Head To Manhattan
NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- The City Council was expected to receive another dose of blizzard backlash Thursday night when public hearings were to be held in Manhattan.
Wednesday night, furious Brooklyn residents lashed out over the bungled response to the post-Christmas storm.
"I'm tired of the I'm sorrys, this happened but I'm sorry, the mayor is like "oh well, I'm sorry, get over it." Ain't no getting over this," one of the attendees said.
About 100 people showed up at Borough Hall to voice their anger and frustration, but the room fell silent at the story told by Robert Davis. His wife died of a heart attack while he waited hours for an ambulance.
"She was already gone by the time they got there," he said. "The medical examiner got there Tuesday morning so I had to sit in the house with my wife all night."
The Manhattan hearing was scheduled to begins at 6 p.m. at the Adam Clayton Powell state office building in Harlem.
Tuesday night, Staten Islanders took turns blasting the snow response that dumped up to 30 inches on the borough. A local pastor and his congregation said they're still buried some three-plus weeks later.
"I think it was shameless, shameless. That same snow turned to ice and the ice hasn't been removed," said Lloyd Land, pastor of the First United Christian Church in the Park Hill section of the borough.
"If this blizzard was not considered a snow emergency, then what constitutes a snow emergency?" said Rosanne Friscia of Castleton Corners.
"The best vehicles in the world can't get around a bus or a tractor trailer that's stuck across an intersection," business owner Steve Margarella said.
A sanitation department spokesman took notes and apologized for the response he called "not acceptable."
A study of 1,700 Staten Islanders shows:
* 83 percent didn't see a snowplow till midweek.
* 78 percent were unable to leave home.
* 67 percent couldn't get to work.
* 43 percent lost pay.
