South Philly Review

While the City has vowed to plow smaller streets after the main roads have been cleared, some residents were not willing to wait.

“We need groceries,” Carla Carpenter, of the 2600 block of Juniper Street, said Monday. “I’m handicapped. I can’t carry my bags up the street.”

A City plow made its way up Juniper at about midnight Saturday after the first 2 inches of snow fell, but, as of Monday, had not reappeared, she said.

“It’s a waste of our money — our taxpayers’ money,” Carpenter said.

But Philadelphia hasn’t seen a winter of this magnitude since 1995-96 when a total of 65.5 inches of the white stuff covered the sidewalks and streets. This past weekend’s accumulation was 28.5 inches, according to the City. About 23.2 inches accumulated during the Dec. 19 and 20 snowstorm that cost the city about $3.5 million, according to Mayor Michael Nutter’s spokeswoman Maura Kennedy. Costs for the recent storm were not all available at press time.

At press time, residents were gearing up for another monster blast, which the National Weather Service was predicting would dump another 10 to 18 inches on the area. The final measurement for that storm was 15.8 inches bringing this winter's total to 72.1 inches — 6.6 inches more than the previous record.

A winter storm warning went into effect 7 p.m. Tuesday through midnight Wednesday by the National Weather Service while the city declared a snow emergency that started 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Trash pickup was canceled yesterday and this week’s schedule had not been determined as of press time.

“We are asking residents to be patient as we continue to fight against the last storm,” Streets Commissioner Clarena Tolson said in a statement Tuesday.

More than 480 vehicles were expected to treat the snowfall with 18,000 tons of salt available to the more than 600 City workers.

Nutter and the City are managing the situation as best they can.

“This is a northeastern city,” Nutter said during his Saturday press conference in the midst of storm No. 2. “It snows. It snows all the time and we can’t predict what’s going to happen. The cost issue does not enter into the equation in terms of these kinds of events.

Our primary focus is on making sure that our citizens are safe, our streets are passable and we do what we need to do.”

The City declared a snow emergency 8 p.m. last Friday until noon on Sunday, while Gov. Ed Rendell announced Saturday a statewide disaster emergency, which allowed all necessary resources to be used to cope with the snowstorm.

Residents like Carpenter, who reside on narrow streets in that plows have trouble getting down, sometimes work as a team to dig out of the waist-deep snow.

After seeing how bad her street was, Carpenter searched for a company to clean the block. She called Mark Leuzzi and Sons, 2418 S. 18th St., who cleared the block for $250 on Monday.

“Let’s get things in our own hands,” Carpenter said. “And that’s what we did. By the time [the City plows] come, the snow would be up to the roof.”

Each neighbor chipped in what they could, which was about $15 to $20, and some had a shovel on hand to steer the snow away from the sidewalks.