Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Updates New Yorkers on Winter Storm Hercules at Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Headquarters

January 2, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Hello! Good afternoon. We have an eventful day on our hands, and we want to make sure that we’re regularly updating you. Would like to acknowledge some of the agency heads who are standing here with me and other key figures in our administration – I'm going to name some, and if I miss anyone, please, my colleagues, let me know.

First, our effort today is being coordinated and led by First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris. We have with us NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton; Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty; OEM Commissioner Joe Bruno; FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano; our new schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña; the president of NYC Transit, Carmen Bianco; and our Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli.

Let me give you some updates to begin. We have been in touch – we did a conference call just a short while ago with the National Weather Service, which obviously is the definitive voice on the situation. They have a winter storm warning in effect from 6 pm this evening till 1 pm tomorrow – that's 6 pm this evening till 1 pm tomorrow. The forecast now – and we talked about this a little bit earlier – we have a little bit of progress here – the forecast is now calling for five to nine inches of snow – between five and nine inches. Again, I will emphasize many times – this can change at any moment. Even though we are seeing some promising signs, that can change at any moment and that's why it's so important for everyone to pay close attention to updates in the coming hours.

We can expect winds of 15 to 25 miles an hour, but with gusts of up to 35 miles an hour – so it will be a windy situation. It also means that snow will be blowing around quite a bit, which will make travel even more difficult. Very important point – we expect wind chills. It could be as low as ten below zero tomorrow – ten below zero. That is much colder than it's been in recent weeks. So this is the first of many times I will say, please, starting this evening, stay indoors to the maximum extent possible. Stay out of your cars to the maximum extent possible. If you don't need to go out, please don't go out. We want to make sure that people are safe. We want them to be in a warm location. And crucially, we want to keep our streets clear so the good men and women of the Sanitation Department can ensure that our streets are plowed and salted so everything will be stable tomorrow. So it's very important that people get home as soon as possible tonight. Get to a safe warm place. Stay off the streets. Stay out of your cars.

We're going to talk about each city agency and what they're doing in response to the storm – and I'll tell you that I've had my first opportunity today to talk to each commissioner about the work they're doing. We obviously did not expect to have this situation as our first staff meeting, but I have to tell you how impressed I am and how proud I am of each commissioner and each agency.  They’ve swung into action very quickly, very comprehensively to deal with this crisis – and there's obviously a very high level of coordination between the different agencies. As we went around the table, many times, commissioners talked about the way they’re already working with their fellow agencies to protect the people of the city. So I want to assure everyone that tremendous levels of coordination are happening already.

Again, First Deputy Mayor Shorris has been in constant touch with each of the city agencies, but he's also in touch with the state government to coordinate efforts with the state. When it comes to our streets and highways, our city sanitation workers are on full mobilization and they have been since this morning. They're working 12-hour shifts in light of this emergency, with more than 2,300 workers on each shift. Sanitation Department already has deployed 450 salt spreaders to prepare the ground for what's coming. And as soon as we have at least two inches of snow, they will deploy 1,700 trucks equipped with snowplows. So, the minute we get to that level of snow accumulation, again, 1,700 trucks will be deployed with snowplows.

Sanitation plows are GPS-equipped, which means that each plow's location can be tracked and they can be sent where the need is greatest. Also it means that all New Yorkers can track the progress of snow removal in their own neighborhood online at nyc.gov – nyc.gov using the PlowNYC feature.

Very important point – I wanted to say this and I'm going to ask you, all our friends in the media, to emphasize this – alternate side parking has been suspended today and will be suspended tomorrow. Alternate side parking will be suspended tomorrow, meaning in light of our desire to get people off the streets tonight, people can rest assured – if your car is parked tonight, you can leave it where it is. There will be no problem with alternate side tomorrow – people can rest assured and leave their cars in place.

The Department of Parks, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Transportation will supplement snow removal efforts with their own equipment. So they're providing their equipment to aid in sanitation's efforts. There will also be NYPD tow trucks and private tow trucks mobilized for removing stalled vehicles from roadways and streets. So, we're very crucially focused on making sure there are not vehicles in the way of our efforts to plow and salt the streets – that's why we want people to stay in tonight – but in the event any vehicles are stalled, we will have the NYPD tow trucks ready to remove them. Also, the Sanitation Department will be bringing in pre-registered snow laborers to clear crosswalks, bus stop shelters, and other sensitive locations.

In the meantime, at this moment, sanitation crews have been still collecting garbage and recycling today, but that effort will end as soon as they are needed for anything related to snow activities. I've clarified, again, no alternate side tomorrow.

Let me talk about some of our public safety agencies. Tonight, the Fire Department will have additional ambulances on the streets. They will have snow chains on their tires and snow removal equipment and other special equipment on board. So we have additional capacity and it's a capacity that will be able to handle snow conditions. And with a snow situation comes the challenge that faces our firefighters in the event there are fires that they have to respond to. Commissioner Cassano has ensured there will an additional firefighter added to each engine unit starting with tonight's tour of duty.

We do know there is the possibility of moderate coastal flooding in a few areas of the city – I emphasize – moderate coastal flooding in a few areas. And therefore, the FDNY has also pre-positioned a number of its waterborne rescue units in some of the city's low-lying areas.

We talked a bit about our human services agencies, which – I've heard them all describe their efforts and I want to thank them for being in such a proactive mode. By the end of this afternoon, all of the Department for the Aging's home-delivered meal programs will have delivered extra meals that will last seniors through Monday. So, those deliveries will happen by the end of today, and there'll be enough food to get our seniors who receive those meals through to Monday.

Important update – senior centers will be closed tomorrow. Please include that in your coverage. Senior centers will be closed tomorrow. We want to make sure our seniors are safe and are not trying to move around in difficult conditions.

It'll be windy and icy out tomorrow. Regardless of the exact number of inches of snow that we receive, we know for sure it will be windy, it will be icy. We want our seniors to stay indoors and stay safe.
Our public hospital system is fully prepared for the storm. All facilities have emergency generators fully fueled and there are enough medical supplies and food on-hand to carry them through the weekend, if needed.

Working with the Department of Homeless Services, we've ordered a doubling of outreach efforts to reach unsheltered New Yorkers to make sure that they are offered every opportunity for shelter. Shelter capacity is available. It will be expedited for anyone in need. If anyone is in immediate danger, the Department of Homeless Services and NYPD will intervene, if needed, to get them to shelter.

I want to say to the public, if you see somebody homeless or somebody in distress, please call 3-1-1. If someone is in distress and it's not an urgent emergency, but someone needs shelter, they need help, call 3-1-1. We do not want people staying outside overnight on this night. If the situation appears more urgent, if anyone believes they are seeing a life-threatening situation, call 9-1-1. So if someone needs help, needs shelter, call 3-1-1. If someone's life might be threatened, if someone might be in immediate danger, call 9-1-1.

And also, just to say to all New Yorkers, please check in on your neighbors. If you have neighbors who might have special needs, might be disabled, might be seniors, who you think might be a little vulnerable, please reach out to them, check in. Make sure that they're safe. Make sure that they're warm. Make sure they have enough food to eat.

I remind people that we want always – and this is true in every situation – New Yorkers to be careful about the use of 9-1-1. If you think something might be life-threatening, again, do not hesitate, but if it feels like it's a situation that could be handled in a more moderate way, turn to 3-1-1.

Now, we'll continue to update you into this evening as we get additional updates, as there are additional preparations made. For the time being, I want to say that parents and students and teachers and school staff – and I say this as a public school parent myself – at this moment, you should assume the schools will be open tomorrow. At this moment, you should assume schools will be open. Final decision will be made in the early morning hours – in time to get an alert out if, in fact, there is a situation where schools may need to be closed. But this moment, assume schools are open tomorrow.

You can sign up – any New Yorker can sign up on nyc.gov for NotifyNYC texts and email alerts. You can also follow nyc.gov on Twitter and Facebook. And you can send a text to 3-1-1 about any snow issues. So, if you have a snow issue you want to relate to 3-1-1, you can do that via text. The number to text is 3-1-1-N-Y-C or 3-1-1-6-9-2. If you text, for example, about a street that needs to be plowed, a 3-1-1 representative will make sure that information gets to the Sanitation Department or whatever agency pertinent regarding whatever you have texted.

I, again, want to make clear, the snow is one factor, but the frigid cold conditions – and this is going to be a given tomorrow – we have to be ready for this. Temperatures will fall into the low teens tonight and could, in fact, go lower with wind chill. There are a host of particular challenges that come with weather that's this cold. And I'm going to do my best to interpret them – and if Commissioner Farley of the Health Department wants to add at the end of my remarks, he is welcome to. This kind of cold situation unfortunately leads to people trying to improvise to heat their apartments or their homes if they don't have heat available. This, for example, can include the improper use of space heaters and electric blankets, the overloading of extension cords and power strips, or keeping gas ranges and the ovens on for heating purposes. These are all situations that can be dangerous. And if anyone does not have enough heat, the thing we want them to do is to reach their building owner to get the help they need – or if they're not getting support from their building owner, to call 311 right away.

I urge people to report any situation where they're not getting enough heat so we can act on it if they cannot solve it with their building owner. But we want to caution again – extreme caution when it comes to the use of space heaters and electric blankets; when it comes to the overloading of extension cords and power strips; or the use of gas ranges and ovens for heating purposes. We understand why people may be tempted to turn to these for help, but the problem is these are choices that could lead to much greater problems.

Another problem is the fact that these specific options could lead to a greater chance of fire, could lead to a greater chance of carbon monoxide poisoning. So we want to make sure people understand that if you don't have enough heat, please, again, reach out to your building owner or to 3-1-1.

On another health note, if you see someone who appears to be shivering in a very intense manner or seems to be disoriented, this could be a sign of hypothermia – and please take those signs seriously. If you see someone in that situation, please call immediately to 9-1-1 for help. Anyone disoriented or shivering in an uncontrollable manner, call 9-1-1 or do whatever you can to get them to a warm, safe place immediately.

With that, I'll simply say, I, again, want to thank all of the agency leaders who are here. I think they're doing an extraordinary job already in coordinating services and preparing. I also want to thank Lori Ardito from Department of Transportation. Everyone is ready. Everyone is focused. Everyone is coordinated.

Before we take questions, let me offer to Commissioner Doherty or any other – or Commissioner Bruno – anyone who has something that I might have missed that we should add before questions – or to Chancellor Fariña – why don't you come to the podium?

Great, we have the step stool always at the ready.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña: Well, compared to you [laughs]. The PSLAL programs will be cancelled tomorrow. All field trips will be cancelled tomorrow and all after-school programs will be cancelled tomorrow – that's more as an advisory so people who plan on that know that that's already done, regardless of whether school is open or not. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you. Commissioner Bruno? Please.

Commissioner Joseph Bruno, Office of Emergency Management: Just one thing.

Mayor: Please.

Commissioner Bruno: There we go [laughs]. I just want to tell you all that, obviously, we're activated here at OEM. We have the police department, the Fire Department, EMS here, MTA, DOT, the Sanitation Department. We'll add additional agencies as we go through. People will work around the clock until this is over. That's what we've done in the past and we'll continue to do it.

And I agree with the mayor – there’s been great cooperation, tremendous cooperation. We've got the tow truck task force upstairs – activated, ready. They have quite a few assets available to them and we're very pleased with the cooperation. So, thank you very much.

Mayor: Thank you. I'd like to note – just a tremendous thank you to Commissioner Bruno for the extraordinary work he does. But also this command center is a marvel – and it's been built over years, perfected over years in learned – things that were learned in real crisis conditions. But when you go around, as I had the chance to tour a few minutes ago, and you see the state of readiness and the professionalism of the team, it's really a credit to New York City that there's such a tremendous capacity here. Commissioner Doherty, anything we should add?

Commissioner John Doherty, Department of Sanitation: No – I just want to follow up what the mayor said about, you know, keeping off the roadways tonight, driving. Leave the roadways to us and people stay off walking on the streets – it's going to be terrible out there. I think one of the things I want to remind people about – and they give us a little patience – the wind is going to be blowing – there's going to be high gusts. We're going to be plowing streets and no sooner we go through in some areas, snow is going to be back over on them, because it’s going to be a very dry snow.

So it's going to take us a while to get this done until it starts slowing down. Some neighborhoods the snow may be blown away by the wind, and in other neighborhoods, it’s just going to keep blowing back and forth during the course of the night. So be aware of that – and that's another reason to say, "Stay away!" As many plows and as many spreaders we have out there, it's going to be a very difficult night. Visibility is going to be very poor, particularly after midnight. I think it's going to be really hectic out on the roadways. Please leave them to us and bear with us a little bit when that wind is blowing and snow is blowing all over the city. Thank you.

Mayor: Excellent. Thank you very much, Commissioner. And with that, we welcome your questions. Yes, sir.
Question: Mayor, given the conditions that you've delineated here, why the reluctance to just immediately close the schools? I mean, can you explain why you'd want to wait on that?

Mayor: Because we're talking about 1.1 million-plus kids and all of their families and we have to make sure we get this right. So right now, we simply don't know enough to make a firm decision. We have to see how the weather develops. We – obviously, the first concern is for the safety of our children, for the safety of their parents, for the safety of all the people who work in the school system, but we're still not at a point now where we have enough information to make a final call. It's a very, very big endeavor, I assure you. Lisa?

Question: Mayor, will the subways and buses be running on the same schedule tonight – regular schedules?

Mayor: I want to call Carmen over and I want to say thank you to Carmen. I think the work that's being done at Transit to prepare is extensive and very impressive. I think we should, by definition, expect some delays, but, Carmen, why don't you fill in the blank [inaudible]?

NYC Transit President Carmen Bianco: Thank you, sir. Carmen Bianco – I'm the President of New York City Transit. Tonight, we have a full complement of snow-fighting equipment out there on the tracks, subway-specific, that will ensure that we keep the outdoor portions of our subway open throughout the evening. We do plan to run service throughout the night. However, as we begin to close down the express service, those trains will be laid up underground this evening, so we will not put them in yards. We will lay them up underground on the express tracks, so therefore everything will run on the local tracks at some point later tonight.

We have a full complement of employees out there tonight that will work on salting and sanding our stations, ensuring that they are safe. We will have our command center open all night, and we will stay very close to all the issues that we see coming up, and making sure that we're coordinating very closely with OEM and other city agencies throughout the evening.

On the – sorry, yes – on the bus side of the house, what we plan to do tonight is to have – to take the articulated buses off the street after the evening rush hour. We will be out there with the complement of about 2,900 of our local coaches. Those coaches will all have chains and we will run that service through the evening.

Question: [inaudible]

President Bianco: Yes.

Mayor: Carmen, I'm going to – I’m going to coach with you here at this point. I want to make sure we're right – that I think clearly, we want New Yorkers to use mass transit rather than being out on the roads, but I think people should also understand there could be some delays, particularly on elevated lines and on buses, so – depending on conditions. So, I just want to make sure that that message is clear, that you will be better off if you have the option of mass transit – and if you have to go out, please use mass transit, but do expect some delays, again, particularly with buses and elevated lines. Yes –

Question: Governor Cuomo announced some road closures [inaudible]. Is there going to be any equivalent on the city level, any kind of street closures or restrictions on movement of traffic?

Mayor: At this moment, we – we want to discourage people from using the streets who don't need to use them, but we don't have a specific plan to close specific streets yet. That’s going to be – and we may not need to, depending on the magnitude of the storm. We're going to see how that develops. Yes –

Question: In previous storms, there have been issues with 9-1-1 dispatching and significant delays with emergency vehicles responding to scenes. I was wondering if you could express your state of confidence in the 9-1-1 system? And beyond that, what measures have been taken to prepare these vehicles [inaudible]?

Mayor: Yeah, just having talked with all the commissioners, I have a lot of confidence that additional personnel are in place and that people are ready to handle the magnitude, but if anyone wants to add, feel free.

President Bianco: Just on EMS and the fire side, we are fully staffed with additional dispatchers coming in in case the call volume does go up. And then we have the ambulances and the fire trucks to handle the call volume when it does go up. So, we're fully staffed and actually have more additional personnel. On the 9-1-1 system, I guess Commissioner Bratton can speak to the 9-1-1 system [inaudible].

Commissioner Bill Bratton, NYPD: We have protocols in place that would allow for the transportation of our 9-1-1 dispatchers from their home precincts. We also have provisions to hold over our police officers, full tours if necessary, if in fact many of the officers living outside of the city environment or if there are transportation issues with public transit. If they can't get in, we have the ability to hold whole tours of duty. So, we are in good shape, both on the 9-1-1, as well as on the patrol service side of the issue. Thank you.

Mayor: If I may offer one or a couple of sentences in Spanish just to make sure everyone's getting this update.

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

Additional questions?

Question: The Citi Bike stations in Times Square – a number of city bike stations were removed, I guess for the New Year's Eve celebration. They still haven't been put back. Is that because of the storm?

Mayor: You’re – that’s a great question. I don't know if – Lori, thank you.

Acting Commissioner Lori Ardito, Department of Transportation: Actually the Citi Bike stations – yeah, we did not move them back in preparation knowing that the storm is coming. And the other – the other stations – we’re moving a lot of the bikes there on the streets onto sidewalk stations, so that we can get them off the streets and make sure that the plows can get through.

Mayor: Yes –

Question: I understand that when it gets very, very cold, salt isn't as effective on the streets, and I was wondering if you have another plan in place.

Mayor: You are correct, and Commissioner Doherty will tell you what we're going to do as best we can.

Commissioner Doherty: It becomes very difficult – once it gets below 25, the effectiveness of it is reduced quite a bit. When we get down into the teens or single digits, it's very difficult. What we have though – and we’ve – we’ve putting – we're adjusting our spreaders, so we put more calcium chloride in a liquid form out when [inaudible]. That will help, but when we get down to ten and 12 degrees tonight, you're not going to get the effect – other than on roadways where there may be some traffic, which is what we don't want really.

But it's going to be a difficult night, and that's why I warn people – stay in, be careful. A lot of people expect in New York City to see blacktop all the time. It's not going to happen tonight. It's going to take us a while. Salt won't be effective, plows will be out there working through the night and the wind and the gust and the blowing light snow is going to be difficult for everyone.

Mayor: Any other questions? Going once – Okay.

Question: Are you going to give another [inaudible] update or – ?

Mayor: Scheduled? Not yet, but as needed, if we get some major developments, we will update you later on. Again, I think one of the big issues here is school tomorrow. That decision will probably not be made until the very early morning hours, but in enough time to get the word out to parents and get the word out to school personnel.

But if anything else in the course of this evening requires an urgent update, we will do so. I like to focus everyone on the most important message. The most important message is stay in tonight. Do not drive unless you absolutely need to drive. If you have to get somewhere, please use mass transit. Stay safe. Give us the space to be able to keep these streets well plowed and salted.

If you see a fellow New Yorker in distress, if it's not life-threatening, call 3-1-1; if it might be life-threatening call, 9-1-1.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you.