At least Mayor Bloomberg is proud of himself.  In a press release he said the city’s response to the snow this morning showed it had fixed the problems that plagued the much griped about handling of the Dec. 26 blizzard.  Arguably, this most recent snow was not as bad as last month’s, but the official record indicated  9.1 inches in Central Park.  It was worse in other parts of the city, but I swear the BQE never looked that bad from where I was looking on my buddy’s fire escape. Snowpacalypse 2010 reached upwards of 20 inches in some areas, but I gues we shouldn’t belittle the city’s efforts.  According to WNYC:

The mayor vowed a faster and more efficient response to the storm this time. There were 106 private contractors helping to clear the city’s tertiary street and 1,000 laborers who cleared bus stops and cross walks.  ”Our goal for this storm was not merely to get back to business as usual,” Bloomberg said. “Our goal was to deploy a more effective snow response operation than ever, more aggressive and more accountable, based on the lessons that we learned in the last storm and that’s what we’ve done.”

Thanks, Mike. That just means we had to go to work today. Winter is far from over, but im already tired of it.  Check this vid from last month:

Let the transplant insults fly, but I’m originally from North Carolina.  So are a few of my friends that live here in Brooklyn.  As all of our flights were cancelled due to the snowpocalypse, and we’d already spent plenty of quality holiday time in the Tarheel state; four of us got refunds on our plane tickets, rented a car, and made the trek up the highway.  We left ungodly early and avoided the traffic until DC. The driving conditions weren’t too bad either, until Delaware.  By the time we hit the turnpike however, it was a pure shit-show.  We made it home eventually, but the Mad Max-style lawlessness that met us almost put a damper on our triumphant return.  It didn’t, but the traffic, snow, and wandering pedestrians did make unloading our luggage absurdly difficult on the unplowed streets of Southside Williamsburg. We watched the plow truck get stuck in front of us for 15 minutes, its chained tires spinning in the snow until they hit asphalt, sending sparks flying into the slush.  When we finally passed the struggling sanitation truck, repurposed to fight the blizzard, we saw the surest signs of deteriorating civilization. On S. 4th Street, it seems people have started to make ramshackle homes in the streets. In the middle of an intersection, a quite impressive igloo, topped with a flag of the Dominican Republic stands strong and proud against the bitter wind.  On my street, there is an MTA bus trapped in a snow drift with its flashers on.  The neighbors told me it has been there for three days.

I wish our readers the best. Good luck if you’re still stranded far from home sweet Williamsburg, my condolences if you’re stuck in some airport or train station, and my congrats if you’ve made it back.  Don’t let the snowpocalypse win! Have a good time, go to work, and make plans for New Year’s eve. As soon as Manhattan is taken care of, I’m sure they’ll dig us out.