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That's Right, An "Equipment Glitch" Caused Plows to Fail
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 4, 2011
Modified Jan 4, 2011
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jan 4, 2011
Modified Jan 4, 2011
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Excuse our sarcastic quotation marks, because even if this is true it's almost too ridiculous. The Sanitation Department is saying, over a week after Blizzageddon paralyzed NYC, that there was a massive "equipment glitch" that caused many of the plows to fail. And what was that glitch, you ask? A "tripping mechanism" that caused the plows to stop if they hit something, like a giant pile of snow.
The Sanitation Department claims the machinery, purchased last winter, was working just fine until the big bad blizzard overwhelmed the plows with all the snow. DSNY Equipment Chief Anthony Marino reportedly sent out a memo on January 2nd showing workers how to readjust their "trunnion plates," which is cold comfort when at that point streets had been plowless for a week. But one man's equipment glitch is another man's gold mine, and a few Brooklyn teens have managed to turn the blizzard into about $5,000 so far.
The Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers have been busy shoveling and sweeping their neighborhood since the storm, and the increased revenue is helping keep the nonprofit organization Project Re-Generation alive. Founder Barnabas Shakur told the Daily News that they've been having some financial problems, but, "This was the biggest storm we've ever dealt with...Monday and Tuesday we were immobile, we couldn't move." He finally got groups to the street on Wednesday, where it took teams of four about 15 minutes to clear a house. Shakur also said, "Let me say, I can empathize with the Department of Sanitation. It was really hard out there: We couldn't move, our trucks got stuck ... it was horrible, but we got it done."
Tagged
blizzadgeddon
blizzard 2010
department of sanitation
equipment glitch
foot soldiers
plow
Jaya Saxena
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