(NECN: Alison King, Boston) - Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Mayor-elect Marty Walsh had a meeting Monday to discuss one of the mayor's most visible duties: Keeping the city safe and running during snowstorms.
From the bunker in City Hall, forecasts sounded disastrous - more than a foot of snow expected to start falling Tuesday right at the peak of the Boston morning rush hour.
Mayor Tom Menino was surrounded by his cabinet, discussing school closings, parking restrictions, street plowing. If all of this is starting to some nervous, never fear: This meeting on Monday was a simulation held for the benefit of Mayor-elect Walsh, who sat next to Menino, soaking it all in.
"I'm happy it was only a fake snowstorm that we had to talk about today, but Marty, one of the first questions you asked me when he got elected, a few days after his victory, was 'We gotta talk about snow,'" Menino says.
"I'm not ready for it yet, but the mayor is on standby and we'll be able to call him and say, 'Mr. Mayor, what do I do now?'" Walsh jokes.
Walsh said it was interesting and important for him hear all that's involved with a city snowstorm beside closing schools and plowing streets.
"You think about community centers being open for the kids, for parents, you think about really, really making the call, when do you make the call on canceling school, things like that. Things that you just don't think about on a normal basis," Walsh says.
Politics
Menino says there's been a lot of collaboration between his office and the Walsh transition team on a number of levels, but with winter upon us, he surely knows a snowstorm might be Walsh's first test in an office where the man in charge can live or die by the weather.
