Feb 6, 2010
Snapshots from The Snowpocalypse
Tree blocking 40th Street this morning. (Photo by Fern Shen)
For once, a monster snow storm lived up to the hype: this blizzard broke the all-time record, smothering Baltimore with two to three feet of snow that continued to fall throughout the day.
Pictured above is one of many trees down across the city, blocking roads and contributing to the huge number of people without electricity today — 151,000, according to some reports.
Digging out on University Parkway. Heavy snow, slow going.
Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings-Blake, meanwhile, was busy with a bona-fide crisis on her first two days on the job.
Here’s one of numerous photos her office sent to the media today and an excerpt from the accompanying text.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake thanking road crews aft. (Photo: courtesy Mayor's office.)
“I am proud of the work being done by hundreds of city employees during this snow emergency,” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake. “We are still operating under a Blizzard Warning, so it is important that residents stay in their homes and off the roads.”
The Department of Transportation has spread 10,859 pounds of salt on city streets, with another 7,180 pounds remaining. The city has spent $407,823 on response to this storm. The Snow Team is keeping an eye on every dollar spent, and identifying ways to maximize resources in every way possible.
At the moment, there are 120 trucks on the road plowing city streets. The Department of Transportation is focusing on Baltimore’s major primary roads and gateways. Two or three plows, driving in tandem, are working to clear the roads. When these roads are cleared, the Department will be able to begin to address secondary roads sooner.
“I cannot stress this enough – stay off the streets,” added Mayor Rawlings-Blake. “Unless you absolutely must drive – and only if you have a four-wheel drive vehicle – stay off the roads. EMS, Fire and Police units, as well as our plows, cannot do their job if abandoned cars are blocking intersections and major byways.”
From 10:00 p.m. on Friday until 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, the Baltimore City Fire Department responded to 267 calls for service. Of the call, 90% of were for Emergency Medical Service (EMS), the remaining 10% were non-EMS calls, including a car fire, collapsed roof and false alarms. For each EMS call, the ambulance was accompanied with a National Guard humvee, Medic Assist Car, or truck company.
Many service calls were for residents living on secondary roads. When Fire Personnel were unable to drive directly to a residence, they walked to the homes from the vehicles. Despite the snow, there were no extended delays in response to service calls or in the delivery of individuals to the hospital.
From Midnight to 8:00 a.m. today, the Baltimore City Police Department received 28 calls for service. In addition to those direct calls for service, Police officers responded to a total of 451 snow-related service calls.
For each call, police officers responded in pairs driving a four-wheel drive vehicle. The Police and Fire Department were assisted on calls with National Guard humvees.
Thanks to their coordinated effort, the Police and Fire Department responded to every call for service.
As Supertramp once said, “Crisis? What Crisis?” Mayor SRB doesn’t LOOK like she’s in a crisis mode. An apocolypse is supposed to be a grand culmination of some sort. This is just a holiday. Now if we get a repeat of the snow lootings of 30 years ago, then we might have a snowpocasomething here.