Shannan Ferry: As we continue our coverage of the storm, I am joined now by Mayor Mamdani to discuss the city's response. Mr. Mayor, good to have you here on News All Day. Thank you for joining us. We were watching your press conference. You announced that schools will indeed be in-person tomorrow. So, I want to learn more about what went into that decision. Why not have a remote learning day tomorrow?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: A lot of it just comes back to our assessment of the city's ability to respond to this blizzard. And as you all have said, this is the first blizzard we've seen since 2016. And we've seen upwards of 19 inches across much of the city. There are parts of eastern Staten Island that are facing about 24 inches of snow. However, as we also know, much of that snowfall has now come to pass. We are now entering into a more moderate sense of what's going to be falling over the next few hours, which means that there's a greater ability for DSNY, as well as our emergency snow shovelers, to respond. And we're fully confident that that, in tandem with the 8,000 DOE employees who've been doing the hard work today of preparing the schools and the sites, will mean that schools are prepared to receive students tomorrow morning, and there'll also be a warm meal.
Ferry: And you also talked about the city getting this waiver for today, right, so that they could have that traditional snow day. So how does that work? Is there going to be one less day of school this year?
Mayor Mamdani: That is what it means. The waiver means that the city will not have to pay upwards of [a] tens-of-millions-of-dollar fine because of the state law requiring 180 days of instruction. The reason we applied for that waiver is this was a confluence of events. You might call it a perfect storm, where we not only had the once in the last 10 years blizzard with this level of snowfall, but also we were coming back from a week-long break within our public school system, so you had a lot of students and teachers who were potentially going to be stranded outside of the city as they were trying to come back in for school on Monday. And we also didn't have students leaving their schools with their devices, as we typically do in anticipation of snowfall.
Ferry: You know, you started this administration, two major snowfalls. I'm curious what you learned about the handling of that first storm that informed you about how to handle this one. You know, what were some of those shortcomings that you think you may be learned from or wanted to correct?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I think every incident is an opportunity for us to meet the needs of New Yorkers across [every] borough and deliver on a standard of excellence. And frankly, what we saw in the last time around, which was the first storm our city had seen in a long time, was the need to respond across the five boroughs, deliver that to all New Yorkers, and do so without the typical assistance of Mother Nature. Because usually after a snowstorm, you will have increased temperatures that will assist you in the melting.
The city instead had to set up specific melting sites, at least one in each borough, where we were actually grinding that ice into liquid. One of the things that we've done in addition this time around, however, is we've geotagged all the bus stops and crosswalks so that the city knows all the locations and the last time that they were cleaned, so we can ensure that every single New Yorker is able to get across the city, whether they're driving, walking, biking or taking a bus or riding the train.
Ferry: We talked about during that press conference as well, the number of downed trees, at least 300 reports of downed trees, and of course, the particular texture of the snow makes that very difficult. So, what is your advice? I heard you say call 311, but should New Yorkers be trying to do this themselves? I mean, what should they do if they have a downed tree on their car or in front of their property?
Mayor Mamdani: I would say the first thing to do is to call 311, because as you said, this is wetter, heavier snow, and if New Yorkers are looking to shovel this snow, we're also asking them to do so carefully. We don't want anyone to enter into a cardiac arrest because of continued attempts at shoveling that snow out, which we've seen in previous storms. But 311 is the perfect place to go. We also have a Downed Tree Task Force that we've put into use today to respond to these incidents so that we can, in fact, help New Yorkers get on with their day.
Ferry: The other big thing that people were talking about after the last storm, of course, was the garbage. And, you know, people had a lot of opinions about that. So what steps is the city going to be taking in the days and weeks to come to prevent those sort[s] of pileups? Of course, the weather helps us that we don't have that deep freeze coming. But what steps is the city taking to prevent that from happening again?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I think there are a few things. The first thing is we know that every single person at DSNY is focused fully on snow removal. That's why you have 2,600 people working 12-hour shifts. In order to supplement that, we have been expanding the emergency snow shoveler program. So last time around, we had about 500, 550 emergency snow shovelers. We've already eclipsed that number to about 1,300. And we found that DSNY, through their additional work, can now supervise up to 1,800 per shift. So, we put the call out to New Yorkers that they can earn 30 bucks an hour by shoveling snow if they come to their local DSNY garage with two forms of ID, and they can sign up any time before 8 p.m. tonight or starting again at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Now, DSNY has made clear that they're going to be suspending trash collection for at least the next two days, and we'll be providing a plan for trash collection for the rest of the week sometime before the end of day tomorrow.
Ferry: You know, speaking of the ID, critics are comparing the ID needed for the snow shoveling, comparing that to not needing ID to cast a ballot. Do you have anything to say about that?
Mayor Mamdani: It's federal law about identification that you need, especially if you are going to be paid for the work that you do. We're just following long-standing city policies, and we're thankful that we've seen so many New Yorkers come out there and join the city's response to this historic snowfall.
Ferry: Mr. Mayor, I have a couple seconds left with you. I know you were a city kid, and today was the first traditional snow day in a long time. So, what was your perfect snow day back in the day?
Mayor Mamdani: I can tell you it was perfect at the beginning. I was sledding with my friends in Riverside Park. We put the garbage can at the bottom of the hill, we packed it, and then I was sitting on the back of the sled. It turned a little negative when we hit the jump perfectly, and I ended up landing, and then my friend landed on my head, and I got a concussion, but I turned out mostly all right.
Ferry: Oh, wow. That's quite the story. All right, Mr. Mayor, thank you for your time. Thanks for joining us on News All Day.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you very much. All the best.
