Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Blizzard Slowdown Investigations Aren't Going Great
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 26, 2011
Modified Jan 26, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jan 26, 2011
Modified Jan 26, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
A month after the start of the great Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010, investigations into the purported sanitation slowdown are starting to slowdown themselves. Because, well, finding evidence of an actual slowdown is turning out to be harder than previously expected.
See, the sexy story of workers not plowing to fight back at the man first hit many media sources via councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who claimed that five sanitation employees, three workers and two supervisors, told him a slowdown had been explicitly ordered to embarrass the mayor. Which is a big deal if true, except the supervisors are denying the story and now Halloran won't say who the workers were (implying that attorney-client privilege also protects him from divulging the names of his clients) and investigators are having a hard time finding anyone else to back up the story (we wonder what happened to that Staten Islander whose best friend told him about the slowdown?).
Halloran has also downplayed his original accusations since they first appeared in the Post on the December 30 (which was days after similar allegations had appeared elsewhere). Originally, he was quoted as saying “they were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank of the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank and file” but now Halloran is saying that nobody was told "explicitly" to slowdown. Halloran is supposed to testify this week before a federal grand jury investigating the mess, so we guess we'll soon know more.
In the meantime, investigators are trying to find actual evidence that workers were intentionally not doing their best. And as much as we wish videos of trucks driving with their plows up counted, they don't—sometimes you just have to pull your plow up.
Tagged
blizzaggedon
blizzard 2010
Dan Halloran
department of sanitation
investigation
slowdown
Garth Johnston
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
A city investigation discovered that when the bus arrived at its destination in Crown Heights, one student was lying in a pool of urine.
By
Jessica Gould
Published Oct 16, 2026 at 1:04 p.m. ET
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
The East River bridges were falling apart until the city implemented a long-term repair plan in the 1990s. Now, officials are forming a new program to keep them standing through the 21st century.
By
Clayton Guse
News
NYC’s bridges can last 'forever,' if we take care of them
The East River bridges were falling apart until the city implemented a long-term repair plan in the 1990s. Now, officials are forming a new program to keep them standing through the 21st century.
By
Clayton Guse
Queens mother charged with murder in death of 5-year-old daughter, NYPD says
By
Ryan Kost
NYC’s whiplash weather continues into weekend with heavy winds, chilly temps, NWS says
By
Monica Melton
Early Addition: Winning an affordable housing lottery is great unless it's not
By
James Ramsay
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .