Hounded by questions from reporters on why days after the storm streets were still unplowed, mass transit down or delayed, and emergency service responses slow, Mayor Bloomberg appeared testy, dismissive and defensive.
It wasn’t until a week after the storm, that New Yorkers even heard grumblings of an apology or the admittance of a mistake. “We did not do as good a job as we wanted,” is what the Mayor initially said at one of the early press conferences after the storm, citing a lack of information as an impediment to the snow clean-up.
Well, just as the snow is finally melting and the issues come to the surface, "Saturday Night Life" and The New Yorker did not hesitate to roast Bloomberg about the snow fall and his sometimes icy demeanor.
Here are a few excerpts from the New Yorkers quite hilarious “snow diary” written from the perspective of Bloomberg.
December 27
How was the Mayor’s office supposed to know the snow was coming? Are we mystics, simply because we sit in an open space and are all very rich? It’s not as if there’s some all-knowing person with a crystal ball who can somehow forecast the weather. . . . The snow is a mystery to me. One day, no snow. The next, so much snow. Where does it come from? Will it stay forever? If only we could fashion a large wall or blade and attach it to a big truck and somehow push the snow away. Perhaps in the future. Perhaps Apple is working on it. The iPlow . . . Who knew there were four other boroughs? Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the other one . . .
December 28th
The criticism mounts. Someplace called the Bronks (sp?) remains snowbound. Am I missing something? Yes, there is a lot of snow. Yes, we haven’t plowed it. Yes, the subways and buses aren’t really running so well. So why don’t people simply use their helicopters? . . . More stories. More criticism. Tension. Stress. Can’t sleep more than eight hours at a stretch. I watch the local news on mute and listen only to the commercials.
December 30th
Good news. Snow melts, my aides tell me. Now, where did all the garbage come from?
The full piece can be found at <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/01/17/110117sh_shouts_kenney#ixzz1AdxbOeCH
">NewYorker.com. Before you hop over there, check out the SNL skit poking fun at Bloomberg's handling of the blizzard. Many of the themes from the New Yorker piece overlap in this skit.
Local
On the more formal end of the spectrum, our reporter Gabe Pressman also posted his thoughts on the letter Bloomberg should have written to New Yorkers.
