Residents Still Buried Under Snow Wonder If City Has Forgotten About Them
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Snow covered roads by day, have turned into an icy mess by night. People from Fishtown to Fairmount are still digging out from the weekend's storm before many have even seen a plow dig in.
"This is the first time it's never been plowed," Alvah "Jim" Smith said. Smith has lived on 25th Street in Fairmount for 35 years. He saw plenty of plows during the storm, but says none of them were actually moving the snow. He even snapped a shot of a plow getting stuck this morning. "He and I had some words," Smith said, of the conversation he had with the driver of that plow. "We walked away from each other, let's put it that way. I asked him, 'why would you go up street with your blade in the air and not spreading salt?"
Around the corner on Perot they are snowed in and still waiting for a sign the city hasn't forgotten about them. "I'm stuck and I need to get places, so it's a problem," Karen Wernheimer told Eyewitness News. Wernheimer has a car stuck halfway down her snow covered block in Fairmount.
She's been calling 311 but hasn't gotten a response yet. "I pay my taxes just like everybody else, you know. I expect the services everybody else gets," she said.
The city says 80% of the streets have been cleared with the Parking Authority chipping in. And while more than 400 blocks were cleared on Tuesday, that's not nearly enough for drivers slipping and sliding and struggling to find a dug out space. That is, if they're lucky enough to get out.
"22 inches of snow is a heck of a lot of snow to be pounded with," Julie Kaursh told Eyewitness News. "Warm temperatures today obviously helped a lot. I've seen plows out and about, you know. I'm sure little side streets like this, just take time."
The city urges residents living on those side streets to keep calling 311. Today, the Philadelphia Parking Authority purchased six new bobcats to immediately get to work on these streets.
