Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on the Weather Channel

January 13, 2016

Stephanie Abrams: The winter elements are posing a threat to residents across all five boroughs. Joining us now is new mayor – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Good morning, mayor, thanks for being with us this morning. Let’s start off with talking about Governor Cuomo, because Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order to protect the homeless during in climate weather. You’ve questioned the legality of forcing homeless people off the streets. What about this executive order troubles you?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Stephanie, the intent of the executive order is actually quite sound – to help people in need. What I’ve said is, the existing state law, I think, covers this exact area, because, for decades, in fact, whenever someone’s been in danger on our streets, we have the power – our police, our emergency services have the power to bring them in, even involuntarily, if necessary. So, I think the bottom line is, we believe this power exists – we’ve used it. Over the last very brutally cold nights over the last couple of weeks, we’ve brought in over 200 folks voluntarily, and just a few involuntarily, but we certainly are ready, willing, and able to bring someone in if there’s a real danger to them and they appear unable to make their own decisions to keep themselves safe. 

Abrams: Yeah. Mayor de Blasio, let’s talk about transportation, because there was much to do about, you know, you guys shutting down public transportation for Winter Storm Juno last year. And I just want to go over the numbers real quick, because 48 hours out, we were forecasting eight to 12 inches of snow – Central Park ended up with 9.8; LaGuardia has 11; JFK had 10.7 – so, it did verify. Now, is there a threshold that you guys follow in order to shut down public transportation? Is it X number of inches of snow? And how far out do you have to do that?

Mayor: Well, in terms of shutting down public transportation, that’s a decision we make pretty close to the event itself. In that instance, we were talking about, if my memory serves, you know, less than 12 hours out. But look, here was the challenge there [inaudible] the forecasting was telling us 20 inches or more of snow – would have been one of the biggest blizzards we had had. It turned out to be very different, thank God, but we had to prepare for the worst. I think it was an experience that tells us to be very cautious before shutting down mass transit in the future, because we want to be 100 percent sure.

Abrams: Is there a way to articulate that to the residents of New York, so people can understand the decision making so they don’t get so upset? Because it really helps you guys clean up the city a whole lot faster – and, by the way, you know, almost 10-11 inches right in Manhattan is, you know, nothing to scoff at. 

Mayor: Absolutely not, in fact, what happened in that situation is we told people we needed them off the roads. We made a big effort to make sure our sanitation department could get out and really clear the roads, and that had a tremendously positive effect. So, in the aftermath, a lot of residents actually understood the decision, and supported it, because their roads were cleared very, very quickly. You know, our snow plows – if there’s nothing in their way but snow, if there’s no vehicles to work around at all, they can do their job very quickly, very well. So, in some ways, there was a silver lining there. But I think [inaudible] you talk about – you know, again, I think we’re talking about 15-20 inches of snow – that’s when we’re going to start to give very different instructions.

Abrams: Alright, Mayor de Blasio, we certainly appreciate your time this morning.