In the wake of the massive snowstorm in the US northeast, frustration turned to anger Wednesday at the apparent failure of New York's municipal authorities to manage the city's paralysis.
"Clearly, the response was unacceptable," said city council speaker Christine Quinn, channeling complaints from residents at a special session convened to examine the response to one of the worst blizzards in decades.
"We're hearing reports from all over of people not even having seen a plow by the afternoon of the day after. This is a level of lack of clean-up that I really can't recall," Quinn said.
The mega storm began Sunday and lasted just over 24 hours, enough time to blanket much of the city in up to 80 centimeters (32 inches) of snow.
"It is a bad situation," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a press conference held to address a poorly managed situation that left thousands of air travellers stranded as airports shut down.
"Nobody suggests that this is easy. Nobody suggests that this is pleasurable. But I can tell you this: we are doing everything that we can think of, working as hard as we can," Bloomberg said.
Airlines services were still limited on Wednesday, with authorities attempting to unclog the system after some 800 flights cancellations on Tuesday, mostly in the New York area.
Thousands more flights had been cancelled on Monday and Sunday, causing chaos for travellers hoping to visit family or return home after Christmas.
With snow plows and salt spreaders struggling through Manhattan, battling the through knee-high snow in many streets, local reports noted that the heavy inundation had severely hampered emergency responses.
In the borough of Brooklyn, a woman who suffered a stroke had to wait six hours for an ambulance, with a bleeding in her brain far more advanced by the time help arrived, The New York Times reported.
In a tragedy for another Brooklyn family, a pregnant woman who went into labor Monday morning waited over nine hours for an ambulance, which eventually arrived too late to save her baby.
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