Dec 14, 2007 8:41 am US/Eastern
Patrick, Staff Discuss Handling Of Storm
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick met with his staff on
Friday to go over how Thursday's storm was handled.
Patrick says he feels the state did everything it could. According
to the governor, they threw everything they had at the storm, and it was done in
a timely fashion.
Patrick claims the problem was the 4,000 pieces of snow removal equipment
assigned to treat the roads were stuck in the same traffic commuters were. "It
is, as a practical matter, it's very tough to plow roads while everybody's on
it. I think one thing I would consider doing differently in the future is
asking people -- if they can -- to take the subway, or commuter rail and leave
their cars because we need the roads to be as clear as possible in order to
plow them."
Patrick says he asked state workers to head home around
11:30 a.m. Private companies were urged to let their employees go a half hour
earlier, but the governor suspects no one actually left their jobs until they
saw the snow starting to fall, and it was too late.
When asked if staggering the dismissal times of companies
would have helped, Patrick, who was also stuck in traffic for more than three
hours, said he did not think that would have made a difference -- given the
timing of the storm.
Boston
Mayor Tom Menino said the city had 400 police officers to help direct traffic,
but there still needs to be cooperation between state officials during a big
storm. "We're gonna figure out how we work together to avoid situations like
this in the future," he said. "There was a breakdown in some agencies and that
should not happen."
The
mayor also wants businesses to come up with a better work release plan so everyone
isn't on the road at the same time.
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