By Mary Wisniewski Mary Wisniewski – Thu Feb 3, 5:21 pm ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on Thursday defended the city's response to an historic blizzard that left hundreds of motorists stranded on the city's busy highway along Lake Michigan.
"It was a crisis," Daley told a press conference, his first public appearance since the blizzard hit Tuesday. "They (city officials) did a very, very good job," he said.
Some 900 vehicles were stranded on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday night when an accident involving a bus halted northbound traffic.
Rescue efforts were hampered by blowing snow and waist-high drifts. Some people were in their cars until early Wednesday, though no serious injuries were reported. Thursday, the road reopened, but many motorists were still trying to find their cars, towed to various locations.
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who is running for mayor, criticized the city's response and called for a review of the incident. Citing advance warnings that there could be flooding off the lake, some critics said the city should have closed the highway in advance of the storm.
City officials said they chose to keep the lakeside highway open because it is a main thoroughfare and if it had been closed, cars would have been clogging other city streets.
Asked about the criticism, Daley made a reference to "Monday morning quarterbacks." Daley, who sometimes displays temper when his decisions are questioned, seemed calm, and even cheerful. He leaves office this spring after 22 years.
Asked why he was missing from news conferences during the blizzard, Daley said he was confident in his aides. "They speak for me," Daley said.
Rotimi Olateju, 35, a Chicago cab driver, said he agreed with the city's decision to leave the Drive open at the start of the storm. He said motorists should have gone home earlier, as he had.
"They heard the radio, they knew this was coming," Olateju said. "Human beings always complain." He said people should feel lucky to be alive. "Every day above the ground is a good day."
(Editing by Greg McCune)
From http://news.yahoo.com
Chicago digging out of near record blizzard
By Mary Wisniewski Mary Wisniewski – Wed Feb 2, 4:44 pm ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chicago, a city that usually sneers at winter, was brought to a near standstill on Wednesday by a blizzard with the third highest snowfall in the city's history.
Chicago public schools, which hadn't closed since 1999, were shut on Wednesday and officials were trying to decide whether to close them Thursday. Courts were closed. Five suburban commuter rail lines were down.
Lake Shore Drive, the city's main north-south thoroughfare, was shut down and littered with over 200 abandoned cars. Side streets were impassable, and even plowed arterial streets and highways were eerily empty.
"This is pretty unbelievable," said John Paczesny, 48, a maintenance worker at a Chicago church. He was out with a snowblower clearing a path Wednesday morning, snow clinging to his mustache and eyebrows.
"I was around in '67 but this is really crazy," he said.
The highest snowfall on record in Chicago was in January 1967, with 23 inches, followed by January 1999 with 21.6 inches. The 2011 blizzard's total was 20.2 inches at O'Hare Airport as of 12 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The sun came out in the afternoon.
Paczesny, who is also a suburban firefighter, helped emergency workers deliver a baby in an ambulance Tuesday night -- a snow plow had to proceed the ambulance to the hospital.
People spotted on the street have been either emergency workers, snow shovelers, or curiosity seekers taking pictures.
On northbound Lake Shore Drive last night, accidents involving a Chicago Transit Authority bus and other cars stopped traffic on the northbound lanes, stranding about 900 cars on their way home.
STRANDED
Rescue efforts were hampered by blowing snow and waist-high drifts. Some people were in their cars until early this morning, though no serious injuries were reported.
Some of those stranded complained help did not come fast enough. Responding to questions at a news conference as to whether Lake Shore Drive should have been closed before rush hour, Mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff, Ray Orozco, said Wednesday that keeping the drive open was not a mistake.
He said the decision was made, despite the risk of high winds off the lake, to allow a way home.
Some saw the snow as an opportunity. Gonzalo Mejia, 57, was out with two friends shoveling walks for $40 a house. "There's crisis -- there's no jobs," Mejia said. "You've got to get out into the street and get some work."
At Union Station, Victoria Clark pulled a small suitcase and sipped a McDonald's coffee after a long night of travel. She boarded at train in Alton Tuesday afternoon around 4, expecting to arrive in Chicago before 9 p.m. Instead, the train arrived at 3 a.m., and her husband was unable to pick her up because of a pile of snow on their Oak Park garage, she said.
She was waiting for her son to get off duty as a Chicago firefighter and give her a ride.
Despite the delay, she praised train personnel. "Attitude under these circumstances is 99 percent of survival," Clark said.
The city's airports stayed open, but airlines canceled a total of 2,600 flights at O'Hare and Midway Wednesday, said city department of aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride.
Bruce Yeager, 44, an architect who planned to work from home Wednesday, was shoveling two-foot drifts off his sidewalk. He said he planned to shovel again in a couple of hours -- a half an inch of snow fell just in the time it took to talk to him.
"The part that's going to be great is when it gets really cold and it turns to rock," Yeager said, with a resigned grin.
Forecasters say the temperature will drop below zero Wednesday night.
Paczesny predicted the city would not be back to normal for two or three days, because of the difficulty of moving the snow.
"You've got to have a place to put it," Paczesny said. "We already have seven to eight-foot piles in the parking lot."
High winds brought huge waves crashing onto the Chicago shoreline from Lake Michigan. One man apparently walking along the lakefront drowned when he was either blown or fell into the lake, according to fire officials.
(Additional reporting by Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Jerry Norton)
Note: yesterday Alsip police are on 124th street issuing a command from their police car with lights on and a wierd sound to remove all cars from the street or they will be towed b/c of the snow and snowplows coming thorugh! I thought their was a hostage situation. It scared me! Back to playing Fallout 3...
The snow is waist deep in Chicago and the suburbs and in some places like Alsip where I live at chest level almost! Good thing we got the snow plows running and plowing the streets. Whew! Also an army of good citizens including adults and children are roaming the streets where I live helping other people shovel the snow. I'll pitch in as well I guess. And off I go... ;)
-Rob
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