BUFFALO, N.Y. — After three major snow storms in his 14-month tenure as Buffalo Dept. of Public Works commissioner, Nate Marton says the city had a "high level of coordination" to snow removal.
"We're getting updates all day long from our emergency manager, what's happening in other departments, where what's our status equipment, where's the status of the warming shelters, he's sharing our information," Marton said.
With someone in place, Marton credits his deputy commissioner, Frank Jackson, with developing a task force approach to snow removal for this latest storm.
"He kind of threw it out there 'let's do this task force approach, let's really just go street by street and, and really take care of it," Marton said. "So we took that little nugget we kind of got to this task force approach."
Marton said utilizing DPW, Parking enforcement, and BPD resources at once, with the emergency manager overseeing operations, allowed the city to have a cohesive and organized approach to the snow removal after this week's lake effect storm.
Buffalo Police would close down roads, while parking enforcement temporarily moved vehicles to allow DPW or contractors to remove several feet of snow from various city streets.
Over 300 pieces of snow removal equipment were used at one point during the operation after the storm. This is the first major storm since the deadly Christmas blizzard where the city needed to hire contractors to assist with snow removal.
This is also the first time that the city is paying contractors close to what the county is.
"That was very helpful. So we are, you know, not quite equal but on par certainly, ' Marton said.. "I've had conversations with contractors who have been helping us this year, and we're at a good place from the city's perspective."
Marton expects crews to continue snow removal operations on Saturday but could see things winding down by Sunday.
"We'll look to kind of bring it down as we can [but] we're not going to stop too soon," Marton said. "The EOC will be open until we complete the task.'
An after-action report for this storm won't be completed until the emergency operation ends, but Marton says he and other commissioners are thinking about what worked and what needs refining.
"I think we did a good really good job of communicating," Marton said. "But we'll go back and dig in and see what we need to do a little bit better."