Buffalo, N.Y (WBEN) - Snowvember 2.0 was one for the record books and one worth looking back on and assessing snow removal efforts.
"Last week's storm was not your average Buffalo snow storm, far exceeding what we generally plan for our snow plan" said Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown during an briefing and report on their performance of their snow plan for the City of Buffalo.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown alongside new Department of Public Works Commissioner Nate Marton and Parking Commissioner Ray Wagner broke down their performance of the snow plan during the snowstorm and fixes that they will be working on going forward during a briefing Tuesday afternoon.
"At one point, we had more than 160 pieces of equipment as part of our snow removal response in South Buffalo, Kaisertown and Lovejoy alone. While a lot of things went right, we have more work to do before the next storm hits. There is no easy answer to removing four feet of snow. No plan will ever remove that much snow in a 24 hour period of time. While there are limitations and what we can do with city, county, state, and contracted equipment, we need to focus even more on our communications so that people are prepared and can assist in the response by parking the vehicles properly to slow down the already challenging response to a declared state of emergency," Mayor Brown said.
According to DPW Commissioner Marton, over 175 mini-tows were conducted during the storm and over 400,000 tons of snow was removed in Buffalo, "We removed and hauled to multiple locations across the city. We had four that we moved to initially and then we added a fifth one, Fuhrmann Boulevard in cooperation with the state."
Mayor Brown and DPW Commissioner Marton also noted the cost the city spent on subcontractors, totalling approximately $1.2 million dollars, "We're looking at cost of over $2.3 million on the storm and we will be working with the state and with the county for FEMA reimbursement, and hopefully to get reimbursed as quickly as possible," said Mayor Brown. The mayor also notes that would only cover 75% of what would ultimately be spent.
In addition, Commissioner Marton mentioned the 3,100 tons of salt were used to clear the roads with a cost of $131,000.
The GPS system on the snow plows were sure to help provide communication to resident on plowed roads, but as soon as they were called upon, malfunctioning ensued.
"One of the biggest disappointments during this storm was the new GPS technology and its public facing component. The new system helped plow drivers, but it did not do much for our residents. The GPS system in this storm worked for internal snow removal operations and the emergency response, but it did not properly communicate the same data publicly. All the information was there, but it wasn't presented properly. This error is now being fixed, but it's important to understand that this error with the public facing GPS system did not impact the response by the city workforce to this state of emergency in one little bit," said Mayor Brown.
"We identified a number of issues already we've been working on it daily, since the issues came up with our third party vendor and internally, we've had some mapping issues," Commissioner Marton added. A task force was assembled just to fix this solution. Marton expects the systems to be running properly again hopefully in time for the next snow storm.
The city also took a moment to acknowledge and remember the life of Michael Muscarella, a long-time employee of the city, who tragically lost his life last Wednesday after being struck by a high loader truck removing snow while it was operating in reverse.
"Mike was a dedicated and hard working city employee as hardworking as they come. He served the residents of Buffalo for almost 30 years, and was loved by many people," Mayor Brown said.
The mayor asks residents to be patient, as they are calling upon every resource that they have available to continue to adapt to the constant severe storms that will continue to become a more commonplace occurrence in our area.
