NYC NOW - February 13, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Due to snowfall in the region, New York City public schools are closed and remote learning is in progress, but many students are struggling with login issues. Meanwhile, flight tracking website Flight Aware reports slowed service at airports in the region with over 175 canceled flights at Laguardia, Newark and JFK airports and nearly 90 delays. Staten Island Ferry service is limited as well. Finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Zachary Iscol, Commissioner of New York City's Office of Emergency Management, to discuss how the city is responding to the snow.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, February 13th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York City public schools might get way less than an A-plus for going to remote learning today. This morning, the school system tweeted the city's remote learning website had major login issues, preventing access and ultimately instruction for some young learners. It said it was actively working with IBM to resolve the issues and urge users to keep refreshing and trying to log in. Many have and have gained access, but WNMIC Gotham has reports of others giving up and deciding to make this a true snow day.

The Education Department now says the problems have largely been resolved. This morning, snow is causing even more pandemonium in the skies than it is in the streets. The flight tracking website, Flight Aware is reporting plenty of delays at the three major airports in the region. across LaGuardia, Newark, and JFK airports. Officials are reporting more than 175 cancel flights and nearly 90 delays. If you got a boat flight for later today, check in with your airline before heading out. And Staten Island ferry commuters can expect limited service for the rest of the day. Because of the snow, the city office of emergency management says the ferry will be running service every 20 minutes through this afternoon.

Snow in the fire barrels is expected. taper off in the early afternoon hours, with temperatures climbing in the early evening as well. Here's that forecast now. 33 with snow still. Coastal flood advisories and winter storm mornings posted. Heavy at times is that snow, one to two inches an hour in the Hudson Valley in southwestern Connecticut, perhaps up to nine inches in Central Park. And then tomorrow it all goes away. Sunny in mid-30s, gusty and freezing is going to feel like. Stay close. There's more after the break.

Snow is falling on the tri-state, and we're expecting a lot of it to stick. Many commuters are making their way on the snow-covered sidewalks and streets. Zachary Iskell is Commissioner of New York City's Office of Emergency Management, and he joins us now to talk about how the city is responding. And we're eager to hear, Commissioner, what the city is doing to address the snow. Yeah, absolutely. So this was a – we started preparing days in advance. The city for all weather events, we start coordinating with the National Weather Service as we start to see any type of weather event on the horizon. We started doing that late last week. But this was a forecast that changed pretty drastically. Sunday, we were looking at maybe about an inch of snow is what the forecast was calling for. Yesterday morning, the first forecast that we got from the National Weather Service saw that bumped up to five to eight inches with a worst case scenario, locally higher amounts of over 10 inches.

You know, but fortunately, we've been working through the weekend. We always prepare for the worst case, and I could not be prouder of what our sanitation crews have been doing to prepare for this event, our first responders from EMS, FDNY, NYPD, are operational and infrastructure agencies and partners, utility partners like Con Ed, PSE and G, who have crews out, you know, organizations are partners like parks with their downtree task force, environmental protection and Department of Transportation, the work that they're doing out there. And I would just remind New Yorkers, you know, there's also an election day today. And so we have elections taking place at 46 polling sites across the Bronx and Queens today. So we've done some additional work with sanitation to make sure those areas are clear.

And just as I'm grateful for all the men and women who work for the city, who have been working throughout the night to prepare for the city, I'm also incredibly grateful for the polling workers who are showing up in the early mornings to make. sure that we're able to have a robust election day-to-day. Commissioner, other than those polling sites that you mentioned, and access to those sites, are there any other particular areas of major concern for you right now? So my job is to be concerned about everything, and that's what I do. You know, right now we're tracking snow bans, and so I think one of the things about this storm that's different than other storms is there's a really sort of narrow line between

where we possibly could have gotten almost no snow and possibly got to the snow and possibly gotten a lot of snow. And so as we are watching right now, what our meteorologist here is doing along with the National Weather Service is seeing where snow bands are lining up. So we're watching that and seeing where that lays out in the city. But sanitation has a great program in place. They're plowing every single road, salting every single road. We're trying to make sure we're getting information out to the public that people should be staying off the roads, both for their own safety, but also to allow us to do our work, right, to allow us to plow the roads, salt the roads, if first responders need to get around the city to enable them to do that. Sometimes the biggest challenge with these weather events

is less the weather and more contending with things like traffic and things of those nature. And so we are really asking all New Yorkers to help us out here with that. Commissioner, I'm curious, what kind of technology, advanced technologies the city using to stay on top of which streets might need more attention than others? Yeah, so the Department of Sanitation has a great new program where they actually are able to track in real time every single street to see when it was cleared and to make sure that they're tracking every snowplow, every salter in the city to look at how we are doing that across the city. And I think you probably remember, but back in the day, you sent sort of priority areas. And it ended up also becoming a bit of an equity issue, especially with the outer boroughs. We don't do that anymore.

This new technology has enabled us to make sure everywhere is getting plowed, and we're also able to redirect resources based on where we're seeing heavier bans or where there's a need, for example, with today's election day. Do you have more workers available these days to respond to emergencies like this than in previous years? Yeah, so sanitation has done a lot of work to increase their roster. They've done a lot of recruiting, and they are well-prepared to have. have over, I think, a thousand folks out there working the overnight and through today clearing the roads. Now, you mentioned giving some advice to commuters already, but what about the folks out there who are not just walking the streets or taking public transportation, but deciding to get behind the wheel today? What's your advice to them? My first advice is really if you do not have to drive today, you really shouldn't drive, right? And for a variety of reasons.

One is this is a heavy, wet, icy snow. Because it started out as a rain event, that impacted our ability to salt and brand the roads, who weren't able to do that until later during the event, just because if you salt and burn the road during rain, it just gets washed away, right? So the roads are slippery. There's rough conditions out there. You could be putting yourself in danger. And also, should you have an accident, should there be traffic,

that really impedes the city's ability to plow roads. It impedes the ability of first responders to get around the city to address life safety events. So we really encourage people to stay off the roads. And also, once the snow stops, that doesn't mean that the dangers or the hazards have moved on, right? And so one of the things we're looking at is if we have some warmer temperatures later today, that could lead to some snow melt. That melt once the temperatures drop again this evening could freeze. and now you're looking at icy conditions again. And I think that's one of the really important things for all these weather events.

You know, it's very easy for us to pay attention to one hazard, i.e. the snow. But there's other hazards we need to contend with. You know, with high winds today, there's going to be areas around the city, especially southern areas that might have some visibility conditions. We're looking at some potential minor to moderate coastal flooding in and around Jamaica Bay, even up in parts of the Bronx like City Island. But certainly about Jamaica Bay, like Broad Channel, Hamilton Beach, parts of the Rockaways. So it's really important that in this day and age, people stay informed.

They're aware of all hazards. That's Zachree. Iskell Office of Emergency Management for New York City. Commissioner, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.