By Wednesday afternoon, three days after the snowstorm began, the city’s snowplows had not visited the block. It seemed the sort of thing that people in Chicago might regard as no big deal — life on an unplowed street. But the snow that covered the street outside these residents’ houses complicated and frustrated their days and their lives. It undermined their faith in the city, but it strengthened their bonds with the people next door.The George W. Bush School of Public Safety claims another legacy. Bloomberg evidently sat on his hands, expecting that his expertise as a financial wizard would enable him to scowl away the storm. And of course it didn't help that, when a few Parks employees were yanked out of classification to run a few plows normally used for tree-clearing, the usual band of clueless hapless schmucks and egotistical assholes were out on the roads getting stuck and causing accidents.
Garbage trucks had not made pickups in days. Garbage cans that were empty on Sunday were filled nearly to the top on Wednesday. No one had received mail all week. Two residents who rely on Meals on Wheels did not receive food on Monday and Tuesday because the driver could not navigate the thick snow...
By then, Ms. Brickell said, she was approaching her breaking point, uneasy about what could happen, for instance, if a fire broke out. So while her husband worked outside on Tuesday, she worked the phones. First, she called 311 to ask when the street would be plowed. She gave up after an hour on hold. So she called the 105th Precinct station house; a police officer suggested she reach out to the Sanitation Department. She did. The man on the other end of the line told her the plows would be there in a couple of hours, she said.
She and other homeowners expressed a mix of resentment and outrage. They said they felt abandoned by the city and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose remarks, they said, belittled their predicament. “We’ve been supportive of Mayor Bloomberg right from the start,” said Mr. Moore, who has lived on the block since 1994. “But it’s really mind-boggling to see what’s happened here. The city really came apart.”
But it's OK because these people waiting around for the nanny-state to change their diapers are just going to have to get used to fending for themselves in the new improved era of drowning in the bathtub. Trust me, honey. When the Peoples' Republic of the Democratic Confederacy gets through with government, you'll never even know it existed.
