In the days immediately following the blizzard, many frustrated Sanitation Workers took to Facebook to complain about the treatment they were getting for their (possibly) hard work. Statuses ranged from, "Nobody understands that we got over 2 feet of snow. It takes time to clear it be patient" to "F” the media!!! We getting it done, all day, everyday, until the snow is gone!!" A few of them are even speaking to the Daily News, and here's who they blame:
- Small staff: "Forty fewer guys in BK 11 alone than in 2006."
- Bloomberg: "Bloomberg didn't declare an emergency right away."
- Bad equipment: "We were short 400 men and we had crappy equipment...The chains kept pulling the tires off my rims. This is 2011, and the city can't buy chains as good as they got 20 years ago?"
- Not enough salt: "God forbid there's a fire. This is how the city saves money?"
- People who drove in the storm: "You think I want my family snowed in? There were abandoned cars all over the gutter. How could you plow?"
- Shovels: "How about the friggin' shovels? They come disassembled. You gotta put 'em together. The handle into the blade, right? Except what? They didn't have the bolts to fasten them."
Despite never accepting some of the blame, the Sanitation workers seemed as pissed off at how the blizzard was handled as everyone else in the city. One said, "Does anyone really believe we wanted people to die? Hey, we live here! That could've been our mother or kid that died. It hurts us that we're being blamed for this. I had one old guy throw a mini-snow blower at me because I plowed past his driveway."
They also denied a slowdown, saying, "Are you kiddin' me?...We know how to do this better than anybody in the world. We just didn't have enough men, the right equipment and the political leadership we needed." However, they didn't mention anything about the many New Yorkers who now have to deal with the mounds of trash rotting outside their buildings. But at least those save lives.
