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<\/a>Photo via jerseycitynj.gov.<\/p>\nBy John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n
\u201cJersey City residents deserved better during the January storm, and they know it, and so do I. This report<\/a> doesn\u2019t make excuses. It tells the truth about what we found when we looked closely at storm operations: a department that had been neglected for a decade, left without the leadership, systems, and operational planning it needed to handle a major weather event,\u201d Solomon said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cPublishing this report is an act of accountability. And the reforms we\u2019ve already put in place \u2014 tested during the February blizzard \u2014 show that rebuilding is possible and that it\u2019s already underway.\u201d<\/p>\n The January 25 storm dropped over nine inches of snow on Jersey City at rates reaching two inches per hour, prompting Governor Mikie Sherrill to declare a state of emergency. While the city deployed over 60 pieces of snow removal equipment and activated its Emergency Operations Center, the response fell well short of resident expectations \u2013 particularly in residential neighborhoods, at crosswalks, and along pedestrian corridors.<\/p>\n Specific failures highlighted included no shift work planning, no quality control mechanisms to verify that routes were being completed as reported, and paper-based systems from the 1990s and GPS tools that were never integrated into operations.<\/p>\n Other shortcomings cited are snow route maps decades out of date, a salt vendor failing to deliver 4,250 of 4,900 contracted tons before the storm, no functioning dispatch office, low staff morale stemming from underinvestment and unresolved union contracts, and no plan or equipment for bike lane clearance or prioritization of pedestrian infrastructure.<\/p>\n The Jersey City Council questioned what went wrong during their January 27th caucus<\/a> meeting, which Department of Public Works Director Greg Kierce attributed to the salt shortage and lingering below freezing temperatures.<\/p>\n