(Brian Burnell, NECN, New Haven, Conn.) - In New Haven, Conn., the main streets are largely passable, not perfect but passable. It's the side streets that are a problem, and the Mayor says it’s largely because of cars that have been parked since the storm started. Now they're buried and they're blocking the route that plows need to get through. But some people we talked to in the neighborhoods say, no, no, no. It’s lack of effort.
Although, there seems to be a whole lot of effort being expended to move the snow, if big trucks and front-end loaders count. Mayor John DeStefano says they've had 30 payloaders and 80 trucks on the job for the past couple of days. But people in this neighborhood say while Grand Avenue, the main drag, was plowed over and over, the side streets were left untouched.
"They just started plowing this street today and now, as you look at it, what is he doing? All of a sudden because the Governor shows up, everyone wants to do their job now. For the past three days, myself and people on the street, we actually started shoveling this. This right here, if I didn't start, I don't know if anybody else would have," says Cornelius Washington.
"And they want us to move our cars without giving us help? Some cars have been sitting for days and they won't give us the courtesy of giving us a jump," Gary Lloyd adds.
Tempers could really start to flare once the parking ban goes into effect Wednesday evening and the towing begins. Many are grabbing the shovels and digging to avoid that.
"The real anger starts tomorrow when we start plowing again in the neighborhoods and the great job everybody did on their sidewalks and driveways? We're going to just obliterate," Mayor DeStefano acknowledges.
The Mayor says the focus of the past couple of days has been keeping the main streets open for emergency vehicles especially. All the cities are now getting help from the state.
Local
"I think we have about 8 Humvees here and about 29 personnel and two loaders and, as you know, we released all of our state contractors and a lot of those contractors have now gone to local communities," says Gov. Dannel Malloy, in New Haven.
For a while on Monday, police officers were stationed at four entry points to the city. They were stopping cars, asking people what their business in the city was and, if it wasn't crucial, saying turn around and go back. There's no place to park. They stopped doing that pretty quickly because, the Mayor says, it wasn't very effective and it was making people mad.
