Photo: AFP
As soon as the weather forecasters mention even the remote possibility that snow will fall in New York, the Department of Sanitation is working hard behind the scenes to get the city rolling as quickly as possible when the storm ends. The 7,000 members of “New York’s Strongest” live up to the name by doing the heavy lifting that clears the snow and ice off the roads and sidewalks and restores the city’s normal pace of life. It is an essential marvel of modern living that much of the Big Apple takes for granted, as these unsung heroes jump into action and make the city streets clean, safe and usable once again. Javier Lojan is the acting commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to explain all the effort the Department exerts to make New York move again before the final flake even hits the ground.
Lojan, who has nearly 30 years of experience under his belt as a member of the Department, described some of the logistics that go into a “typical” snow removal operation for host Larry Mendte: “You’re talking about a work force of 7,000 sanitation workers. 5,000 around the clock are actually on the ground- plows, salt spreaders and, you know, all these kinds of things, so yeah, it’s one of the most immense operations. It’s quite the sight, you know; you’ve got 6,300 miles of roadway, 19,000 lane miles, so it’s a lot of ground to cover, and the geography is unique from borough and borough, and even within the boroughs it’s unique, so we have to be precise with our operation, and it’s quite impressive when you step back and look at it.”
Lojan says the effort to get the streets and, more importantly, the crosswalks, clear will become the priority in the coming days: “Today we kind of partly shifted our operation into making sure we address that. So we have mechanized equipment, or skid steerers, which have small buckets and they’re very agile. They can move around, so we’ll use that to clear a lot of the crosswalks. We’re also employing emergency snow shovelers, so if people want to make a little extra money… and they’re willing to brave the cold and the elements, they can help out in those efforts, as well.”
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