Metro

Mayor Bloomberg declares ‘weather emergency’ ahead of overnight storm

With another snowstorm heading toward the city, Mayor Bloomberg today declared a weather emergency, which allows his office to take a series of steps in order to ensure streets are properly plowed in the wake of the fiasco that plagued cleanup efforts just last month.

In a news release, City Hall said people are “urged to avoid all unnecessary driving during the duration of the storm and until further directed, and to use public transportation wherever possible.”

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning from Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon, with the heaviest snowfall expected overnight.

Forecasters say New York City and its suburbs could get 8 to 14 inches of snow, with reduced visibility and wind gusts up to 35 mph. Long Island could get as much as 15 inches.

The directive allows the city to:

— Remove any vehicle found to be blocking roadways or impeding the ability to plow streets shall be subject to towing at the owner’s expense.

— Effective immediately, alternate side parking, payment at parking meters and garbage collections is suspended citywide until further notice.

— The Police, Fire, Sanitation and Transportation commissioners will be taking all appropriate and necessary steps to preserve public safety and to render all required and available assistance to “protect the security, well-being and health of the residents of the city.”

“It’s going to be a difficult, difficult rush hour,” Bloomberg said earlier in the day. “The storm is predicted to be at its heaviest just a few hours before rush hour and there’s no ways that our city’s plows can get to all 6,000 streets in one or two hours.”

Bloomberg and his commissioners — who have been under fire for their response to a post-Christmas blizzard — said this third snowstorm in less than three weeks will be another major test.

They are promising a better job than after the Dec. 26 blizzard, which dumped 2 feet of snow in some places. Many streets weren’t plowed for days, ambulances and buses became stuck and 911 calls backed up.

Administration officials spent more than four hours Monday at a City Council hearing about the cleanup, fielding questions about the missteps.

“We didn’t do the job that residents of New York City expected,” said Stephen Goldsmith, Bloomberg’s deputy mayor of operations. “There were a lot of mistakes made, we acknowledge those. We’re here to learn from those mistakes and promise to do better in the future.”

Goldsmith apologized to the city and the council for the many failures, including not briefing the mayor adequately at the start. The cleanup has damaged Bloomberg’s reputation as a no-nonsense manager.

Officials recounted an extensive list of errors, beginning when commissioners considered calling a snow emergency but ultimately did not.

The city last declared a snow emergency in 2005.

With AP