Fenty Defends Plowing Effort; Finds Fight Festive

Mayor talks about snow efforts

D.C. Public Works crews have made good progress on the very difficult job of clearing the snow left from two major blizzards in one week, District Mayor Adrian Fenty said his weekly News4 Today “Connecting with the Mayor” segment.

“Less than 24 hours after it finished, you’re starting to see pavement, not just on the bigger streets but the smaller streets," Fenty said. "This is the biggest snow that D.C. has ever seen, and I have a lot of work cut out for me, and we’ll get it done.”

The mayor was asked when every neighborhood would see a plow come through.

He said the standard his workers were trying to adhere to was that major streets would be plowed within 36 hours after the storm and residential streets 48 to 60 hours after the storm.

“The toughest streets in D.C. are the ones that are hilly or the ones that are very narrow with two parked cars," Fenty said. "If you have a lot of snow and you have cars on both sides, where you push it becomes a problem."

When pressed on a precise time schedule, Fenty said “we’re working as hard as humanly possible. And we’ll be out there as fast as humanly possible.”

As far as where the city was putting all the plowed snow, he noted the temperatures were rising slightly and said, “hopefully it’ll melt and start to make its way downstream.”

The mayor also downplayed concerns that huge celebratory snowball fights could turn ugly and get out of control.

“I think for the most part it was very festive," Fenty said in reference to the Dupont Circle event.  "Don’t throw a snowball at someone who’s not engaged in this because it will hurt and you will upset someone.”

He said police are monitoring the spontaneous gatherings but don’t want to step in prematurely. 

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