NEW YORK —Snowstormscan make, but more often break, big city mayors. AndNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, inaugurated on afreezing New Year's Day, has to lead the city through the largest expected snowstorm in years.
More than half of the United Statesis facing a winter storm over the weekend. Forecasts, for now, show at least a foot of snow piling on New York City sometime beginning Sunday, Jan. 25.
"A snowstorm is for a mayor what foreign policy is for a president," Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy at New York University's Wagner School for Public Service and a former adviser to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, said. "It's the stage where the mayor dominates in New York City."
Massive winter storm set to blanket nation. See photos
New Yorkers will look to the 34-year-old's response as an early test of his managerial chops. Even if he's not in their neighborhood, they'll think of him when they see their sidewalks, streets, bike lanes and trains across the city.
Political experts told USA TODAY it appears Mamdani, a Millennial whose age was considered by some to be too young to lead the nation's largest city and its colossal government, isn't taking chances.
"There have been some famous missteps," Robin Nagle, anthropologist-in-residence at the Department of Sanitation of New York, said. "It's often an early test of a new mayor."
On Friday morning, Mamdani gave weather updates on theWeather Channel, then the famed hip-hop station "Hot 97." He's kept on the sanitation commissioner, whose agency is tasked with "transforming into the nation's largest snow fighting operation," Mamdani said in an emergency management briefing.
To the disappointment of some New Yorkers who would rather be sledding than sitting in class, he ruled out a snow day for the city's 1 million public school students, due to a provision on the number of school days under state law. If there is too much snow for students to get to school, they will hold remote lessons.
The mayor saidone student had even found an email address for his wife Rama Duwaji and laid out the case for a snow day to her.
Blizzards have vexed mayors throughout history
Not all mayors have excelled in the snow, and it's cost them.
In Chicago,a 1979 blizzard iced Mayor Michael Bilandic'sreelection after the city struggled to respond to over 20 inches of snow.
In New York, Mayor John Lindsay's lax response to a 1969 snowstorm stands out, Moss said. That storm, which left over a dozen dead and sawstreets unplowedfor up to a week, nearly cost Lindsay his reelection later that year.
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But other winter events plagued more mayors.
In 2010,Bloomberg's private jetlanded in Bermuda the day before a snowstorm, though he reportedly came back just a day later. A deputy mayor, who had also been out of town for the blizzard, later resigned over the city'sslow response,The New York Times reported.
In January 2014, a month into Bill de Blasio's mayoralty,wealthy Manhattanites on the Upper East Side blamedthe Brooklyn progressive for not adequately salting their sidewalks.
Snow is second to crime in how people feel about city government, said Ester Fuchs, a professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a former Bloomberg adviser. As a quality of life issue, snow cuts across race, class and gender as people look out their windows and doors.
"Did that plow come down your street? Everybody remembers," Fuchs said. "It is a visceral issue that actually informs people's perceptions about the effectiveness of a mayoral administration, and generally, the effectiveness of city government."
The city's real response will come from about 2,000 sanitation workers working 12-hour shifts beginning Saturday evening throughout the snowstorm. Garbage trucks are equipped to plow, salt and even melt snow, a city news release said.
Sanitation workers are required to be at the ready for winter events. Nagle, the anthropologist, cited a familiar phrase for sanitation workers: "When it snows, the department owns you."
The preparation for winter storms begins in the summer, according to Nagle, who wrote a book on the city's sanitation workers. The sanitation department begins inventories for equipment, training and licensing new hires, and practicing routes on warm September nights.
Ultimately, the city's response is under the mayor's control. But forecasts could change, either blowing the storm elsewhere or snowfall isn't as much as expected, in which case the mayor might get blamed for wasting taxpayer dollars on employee overtime and salting the streets.
"To be the mayor in this situation is potentially lose-lose," Nagle said. "On the other hand, it can be a great victory."
Mamdani has one thing going for him. The snowstorm is expected to arrive Sunday, when most are at home. But the next day, people have to step outside for the work week in the bustling city.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email atemcuevas1@usatoday.comor on Signal at emcuevas.01.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Big cities brace for snowstorm. How Zohran Mamdani is coping in NYC
