A fast-changing storm dumped more snow than forecasters expected Saturday, leaving some outer-borough New Yorkers griping about slow-to-appear plows.
Originally forecast for under 3 inches, snow fell faster and more furiously than predicted, piling up to 6 to 7 inches across the city.
Many drivers complained that the Sanitation Department was slow to get its plows on the road.
“It’s like this every single year,” complained Eliot Conti, 56, as he shoveled out his car in Great Kills, Staten Island, Saturday night.
“No one ever comes,” he said of his snow-jammed street.
“It sucks,” agreed driver Benjamin Edwards, 45, as he prepared to maneuver through the slushy streets of Brooklyn Heights.
“Some people have to work tonight and it’s a burden when you pay taxes and rely on the city to do their job.”
But Sanitation said it couldn’t start plowing until at least 2 inches had fallen.
“Otherwise we just rip up the asphalt and pop all the manhole covers,” said Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.
Trucks got moving according to “a full plow plan” by midafternoon, Garcia said.
Sanitation had more than 1,700 plows and spreaders out on city streets.
Mayor de Blasio, meanwhile, “traveled around the city” and was in touch with Garcia about the cleanup, a City Hall source said, vaguely, and daytime crews were on overtime.
Nonetheless, from Bay Ridge to the Upper East Side and from Staten Island to eastern Queens, angry residents took to social media to post photos of slushy, snow-covered streets.
Staten Island Borough President Jim Oddo tweeted that roads were a “mixed bag.” Hylan Boulevard, a main thoroughfare, was plowed but slushy.
Plows hit the streets at around 2 p.m. in Brooklyn, where the snow accumulated fastest.
A Bay Ridge resident posted a photo showing what appeared to be several inches of snow and slush.
By 5 p.m., the heaviest part of the storm reached eastern Queens, where the forecast had ratcheted up to as much as 8 inches, according to Accuweather.