Sanitationmen Tell Their Side of the Blizzard
They are sanitationmen and – as a whole – they’ve been portrayed as abominable snowmen responsible for the lousy cleanup after the Blizzard of 2010.
But five of them who work out of the Brooklyn District 11 garage – known as BK 11 – want the world to hear the “real” story.
“Okay, so what the hell happened?” I ask, as we sit around a table in a cafe on 18th Ave. in Bensonhurst during their 30-minute lunch break on Monday, a week after the snow stopped falling.
“We were short 400 men and we had crappy equipment,” said a guy we’ll call Strongest No. 1, because the sanitmen don’t want their names in the paper.
“Forty fewer guys in BK 11 alone than in 2006,” he said, noting there are 125 workers left in BK 11, which is based on Bay 41st St.
“And Bloomberg didn’t declare an emergency right away,” Strongest No. 2 piped up.
Strongest No. 3 stirred his coffee and said, “Listen, most of us live right here in Bensonhurst. We couldn’t get our own cars out. We walked hip-deep in snow to work that Sunday.”
“My block couldn’t get plowed,” Strongest No. 4 said. “You think I want my family snowed in? There were abandoned cars all over the gutter. How could you plow?”
He shows a phone photo of his one-way street clogged with abandoned cars parked at crazy angles. “I’d call for tow trucks,” he said. “There weren’t enough.”
“BK 11 has about 50 trucks,” Strongest No. 5 said. “About 25 got stuck. Know why? Inferior snow chains. They’d snap as soon as you tried to get traction.”
“The chains kept pulling the tires off my rims,” Strongest No. 1 said, displaying a phone photo of his crippled truck, a rear tire missing from the rim. “This is 2011, and the city can’t buy chains as good as they got 20 years ago?”
“How about the friggin’ shovels?” Strongest No. 3 said. “They come disassembled. You gotta put ’em together. The handle into the blade, right? Except what? They didn’t have the bolts to fasten them.”
“Then, when your truck breaks down, you aren’t allowed to leave it,” says Strongest No. 4. “Guys on OT sitting in disabled trucks, not allowed to leave to eat or go to the bathroom. You call for a replacement. They don’t have anybody. Why? Forty fewer guys. If you leave when nature calls, you get written up for abandoning a city vehicle. And lose a day.”
They laugh about building a Porta Potti along Washington Cemetery out of an old bucket, shredded tires and assorted materials.
“You know the sanitation guy they photographed sleeping?” Strongest No. 4 said. “He dozed off after working 15 straight hours without food or sleep.”
“I worked 100 hours from Sunday to Sunday,” Strongest No. 5 said. “I don’t live in the neighborhood, so I slept in the garage. Some citizens cursed me, threatened me, photographed me. Others fed me hot dinners.”
“All my years on the job I never seen anything like this,” Strongest No. 3 said. “But we never had a perfect storm of fewer men, inferior equipment, 70-mph winds and a political failure to declare a snow emergency. . . . This was all about money.”
“Bloomberg is a CEO, but you can’t run a city like a corporation when lives are at stake,” Strongest No. 1 said.
“Does anyone really believe we wanted people to die? Hey, we live here! That could’ve been our mother or kid that died. It hurts us that we’re being blamed for this. I had one old guy throw a mini-snow blower at me because I plowed past his driveway.”
Strongest No. 1 said the city didn’t give the workers enough salt to do the streets and clear the area around fire hydrants.
“God forbid there’s a fire,” Strongest No. 2 said. “This is how the city saves money?”
What really makes them mad is the suggestion they pulled a slowdown over personnel cuts and middle-management demotions.
“Are you kiddin’ me,” Strongest No. 4 roared, slapping the table. “We don’t care about management on a good day, never mind during a blizzard. We know how to do this better than anybody in the world. We just didn’t have enough men, the right equipment and the political leadership we needed.”
happy with our sanitation guys
my sanitation guys are super nice!!
remember – they are only WORKERS they aren’t the BOSS.
anyways, this morning i wanted to tip them for New Years and the guy said, no please, no tip, just do me a favor, don’t listen to the news and don’t listen to all the bad things they’re saying about us, we workers are doing our job!
(remember, the actual sanitation workers did not wake up in the morning saying, let’s mess up the neighborhood…)
lloyd a cohen
Some Observations:
The responsiblity for any success or failure rests often with the person or people in charge–but the current leadership is good at finger pointing and I Have not heard any sound resonable justification why no snow emergency was declared or why the MTA did not follow its own emergency snow plans? There is another snow storm on its way–is it going to be more of the same on a different day?
New York and the city has one of the most obnoxious hight tax rates in the nation. so how come the city cannot maintain enough essential services and have proper equipment in order to have the ability to handle a snow fall or other such occurence?
In the section of Brooklyn where my mother lives, the sidewalks are broken, the streets are in poor condition, it is filthy and it smells.
Ever been to Boro park, there are streets that are almost impossible to pass because of the cars and on some days there is as much as triple parking. When a school bus or delivery truck comes by and has to stop, no one goes any place. And, because no one can wait or has any patience, the horns go and the accidents occur.
Oka, but...
Okay, but what does that say about the trucks with perfectly good plows THAT WERE RAISED as they drove down unplowed streets?
And what about the trucks with perfectly good plows that went up and down the already-plowed avenues, literally scraping the asphalt?
I don-t buy it.
Not very convincing.
nice words
could we do with a better choice of language in the begining?
sanitation farce!
What a farce–the sanitation director gave his dept an A+ for the job. I personally saw half a street being plowed, then the shovel was lifted leaving a mess of snow; then plowed the first half of next street and lifted shovel again. No normal, honest, hardworking, sincere individual would have performed their working duties in this manner. They are covering up, and will probably get away with it!
not convinced
He said he walked in the snow to work sunday, Hey, didnt it start snowing SUNDAY NIGHT, and arent they supposed to plow DURING THE STORM like they always do, not AFTER to clean up the mess and when their already snowed in. I mean, COME ON how did they clean up any other storm the passed 50 years, they woke up the morning after the storm and DROVE to work!
to #5
to #5 what de hell is worng with the language. they are very plight
5 towns is the place to live
if u have problems with the sanitation department move to the 5 towns. the snow was plowed sunday night and streets were clear by monday morning!
To Number 9
Only problem with living in the 5 towns is there’s nowhere to go anyway, so it doesn’t matter if your streets are plowed.
getting mad that people always complain
why does people always complain about everything.
I see a guy wrote not very convincing give me a brake,if you do not like the job go and be a garbeg man they pay very well. but it is a hard job.
but like always people will complain why???
instead of getting mad thank them that they will give up there holiday just to take the garbeg away.
fine you could say that you can not take the car out from ist place?
so you know what you should do ???
instead of waiting for them to clean the mess after the storm pick up your backside and shovel when the snow is still soft and a little low!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
why do people always complain 2
as much people try with there whole hart to make people happy people will not care about it they will alwys look at the bad side.