This post has been updated.
As noted in the Morning Roundup, today is the two-year anniversary of that incident when a D.C. police officer infamously brought a gun to a snowball fight. On top of that, given the recent drop in temperature, winter is coming.
Perhaps coincidentally, Councilwoman Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) held a hearing on Washington’s preparedness for any snowstorms that may be headed toward the area over the next few months. Cheh, joined by her Environment, Public Works and Transportation Committee colleagues Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), questioned city officials on just how ready the city is to handle blizzards, flurries, icy roads and other wintry anomalies.
In answering Cheh’s queries, Department of Public Works Director William Howland and Department of Transportation Director Terry Bellamy defended their agencies and cited their performances during the winter of 2010-2011, when despite weeks of bracing temperatures, the District experienced just 15 inches of snow, a steep drop from the winter before, which featured walloping storms that received nicknames such as Snowpocalypse, Snomageddon and the like. Still, last winter’s lone major blizzard, which dumped several inches of snow and ice across the area, caused major traffic jams and Pepco service outages that lasted nearly a week for some customers.
But DPW insists it’s ready this year. When Cheh asked about a hypothetical eight-inch snowstorm with 48 hours’ notice, Howland said he would advise the city to close schools—announcing such a decision the night before—and activate both his “A” and “B” shifts of workers. Amid Cheh’s frequent mentions of “Snowmageddon,” Howland said the city could avoid a situation like February 2010, when all kinds of District services were messed up.
This year, DPW has already had one opportunity to make a show of force, when it prepared earlier this month for a light flurry that did not result in any ground accumulation. For what it’s worth, the Capital Weather Gang is anticipating a pretty mild winter, perhaps a bit heavier than last year’s lamb of a season, but close to the average annual snowfall of 15 inches.
While Cheh acknowledged that the school-closing announcement would be heard by District residents, she pressed Howland on how workers—public-sector and otherwise—would be affected by a storm that blanketed the roads throughout the workday. The director recommended listening to weather reports ahead of any weather system’s arrival.
Sound advice, but perhaps not as full an answer as Cheh was seeking.
UPDATE 4:15 p.m.: A spokeswoman for Cheh says the councilwoman was mostly satisfied with Howland and Bellamy’s testimony this morning, but that there are specific areas she’d like to target for improvement.
“The equipment, manpower, and deployment plans all seem to be in order,” Cheh said in a press release this afternoon. Cheh, who chairs the Environment, Public Works, and Transportation Committee, said she’d like to change how D.C. Public Schools coordinate their early releases with students’ parents, boost lines of communications between DPW and councilmembers who represent wards, and see better coordinated repair services between city agencies and Pepco.
And the scheduling of the snow-emergency hearing on the anniversary of the gun at the snowball fight was strictly coincidental, the spokeswoman said.
