Juno Brings Little Snow to Scarsdale

Likening would-be winter storm Juno to the 1966 film, "The Russians Are Coming," Scarsdale Village Manager Al Gatta did not mince words when he expressed his frustration with the circumstances surrounding the Village's storm preparedness drill on January 26-27.

After dire forecasts from the National Weather Service and more communications than he could count from Governor Cuomo and County Executive Rob Astorino, Gatta instructed staff to open an emergency operation center on Monday and kept almost 60 Village employees including police, fire, sanitation and managers on duty all night, awaiting what was supposed to the mother of all storms. Expecting hurricane strength winds and two feet of snow, Gatta and his team were staffed up to confront an Armageddon that failed to arrive.

Plows were out all night clearing scant accumulations, while the Village budget accrued the expense of paying overtime to the staff.

Could this have been avoided? Gatta said, "We did not have accurate information. Even when the storm steered away from New York, the weather service did not alter their forecast. There was no wind – just an overblown report from the Governor."

Was the exaggerated forecast an outcome of social media and the ease of transmitting information? That's something that will take months to investigate. Clearly, after the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy, politicians and officials are afraid to be blamed for putting constituents in harms way and seem to err on the side of caution. When the Governor was charged on Tuesday with overreacting he told CNN, "Better safe than sorry," "Hindsight is 20/20. You act on the information you have at the time." Later Tuesday morning he told reporters at a press conference, "We've had people die in storms ... I'd much rather be in situations where we say, 'We got lucky.'"

However a total shutdown of New York, including all transportation systems, the airports, schools and businesses will come at a high cost and next time officials may hedge their bets and implement more flexible plans that allow them to adjust to the weather as it occurs. For his part, Gatta is calling for the Governor to reimburse local municipalities for the expenses incurred due to the threatened storm.

In Scarsdale, with the roads clear and snowfall on the wane, Mayor Bob Steves lifted the state of emergency that had been declared effective 9 am on Tuesday. Though roads are open – almost nothing else in town is operating. As of Tuesday afternoon, Metro North announced that train service will resume on a Sunday schedule and return to normal on Wednesday.

This could well be Gatta's last storm drill in Scarsdale as he has announced his plans to retire at the end of the fiscal year. He told Scarsdale10583 that he's "ready for some peace and quite from now until June."