Boston aide says he misjudged storm

Commissioner Joseph Casazza, a close ally of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said forecasts he was following called for very little snow most of Saturday, despite predictions on Friday morning calling for between 12 and 18 inches. It wasn't until noon on Saturday, once it became clear the snow would not relent, that he ordered all 360 pieces of Boston's snow removal equipment onto city streets, he said yesterday.

A meteorologist at AccuWeather said yesterday that the heaviest snow of the day fell uninterrupted between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. By 1 p.m., an hour after Casazza ordered a full response, more than 8 inches had blanketed the city.

Casazza, the city's public works director for 35 years, was following forecasts from local television and the National Weather Service, said Menino spokesman Seth Gitell. In an interview, Casazza said the forecasts he was following had changed. "If I had known that, my strategy would have been different," he said.

He also hesitated before dispatching all the snowplows because he worried drivers would become exhausted before the end of the storm.

"I'm certainly not embarrassed by what we did, but I understand the frustration level," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I think we did fairly well with the storm we had to deal with, and I'm going to continue to work at it."

With some city residents directing unusually harsh comments toward Menino, the mayor pointed to his public works director last night as the man responsible for snow removal.

"Joe Casazza made this decision," Menino said in an interview. "He knows better than I do."

While residents from around the region ventured onto area roads yesterday, it was on Boston streets, where as much as 24 inches of snow fell, that the loudest complaints were heard. Residents and city councilors from a wide array of neighborhoods said the city was unprepared for the strong December storm.

City councilors said they received dozens of phone calls complaining about the city's plowing efforts, especially from Allston, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and Roslindale. Some streets remained unplowed through midday yesterday. At noon, Boston's snowplow drivers dug out Glenellen Road in West Roxbury for the first time.

"It seems like the ball was dropped somewhere along the line," said Councilor John Tobin, who plans to call a hearing into the city's snowplowing practices tomorrow. "When there are streets that haven't been done a good 72 hours after the snow has fallen, that's not acceptable."

Yesterday evening Menino said the city had received 200 complaint calls, a sign, he said, that "the majority of the residents were satisfied with snowplowing."

Menino, speaking to reporters before Casazza conceded he had misjudged the storm, defended the city's efforts, saying snow-removal crews did an admirable job throughout the storm and its aftermath. The mayor said he expected all streets in the city to be in fairly good shape by last night, and he ordered the snow emergency parking ban to be lifted at 6 p.m. yesterday.

He acknowledged some problems in plowing on residential streets, but said those issues were mainly the result of illegal parking by residents that kept crews from traversing those roads. "Either the residents did not pay attention to the regulation about parking on the odd side and there was no space available, or some folks just plainly left their cars in the middle of the street and the plows could not get down there," Menino said.

He and his administration also were criticized after a big storm last year. As residents were dealing with clogged streets, Menino went to South Florida, where he met golf pros and had dinner at a four-star restaurant before a US Conference of Mayors meeting in Key West.

Boston was not the only city with problems over the weekend. Around the region, residents heading out of hibernation and back onto the streets did so with varying degrees of success.

In Brockton, which saw 25 inches of snow downtown and 30 in the city's northern hills, Mayor John Yunits Jr. said the downtown area and many main roads were in "fair to poor" condition around noon. Many side roads were impassable.

The problems that led, in part, to the poor conditions in Brockton ranged from the mechanical to the logistical. About 40 pieces of snow-clearing equipment broke down, and many workers were called away to take care of dozens of fallen trees and two water-main breaks.

Also, with approximately 8,500 students who walk to city schools, workers had almost as much sidewalk as roadway to clear, officials said.

Other problems were reported in Foxborough, Newton, and Belmont. One man in Newburyport was trapped in his house by snowdrifts. He climbed out a second-story window, authorities reported.

Like potholes and road repairs, snowplowing can become a hot political issue in Boston. It is unusual for Menino, who enjoys widespread support among residents and city councilors, to take this much heat. "I bet the streets in Hyde Park are plowed, but not here," said West Roxbury resident Kathy Villani, referring to Menino's neighborhood. "It makes me mad to think that I'm going to be faced with a tax increase, and I'm not going to be getting equal services to my neighborhood."

John Tynan, a firefighter who lives on Glenellen Road in West Roxbury, was livid that the street was not plowed until yesterday. He said he waded through a quarter-mile of snow to catch a ride to work.

"I haven't seen it this bad since the blizzard of '78," Tynan said. "The public works commissioner should be drawn and quartered. He doesn't have his streets plowed."

Fed up with the snowdrifts piling up outside his door, Tynan and his fellow Glenellen Road residents called the mayor's 24-hour hotline repeatedly to complain. Each time, Tynan said, the person answering the phone assured him that the snowplows would arrive soon.

By his final call, at 5 a.m. Sunday, Tynan was enraged. "He told me that they were on their way," Tynan said. "I said, `Yeah, and so is Christmas.' This is a disgrace."

Some of the storm's side effects were more painful. Sprains, fractures, and snowblower accidents were among the many serious snow-related injuries treated at area hospitals since the storm began.

Ankle and foot injuries from falls also helped fill emergency rooms.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center treated three people who lost fingers while operating snowblowers.

"They were all under the same circumstances," said Jerry Berger, the hospital's media relations director. "It was people thinking the blower was turned off, sticking their hands in to check, and getting injured."

Many of those without snowblowers suffered back strain from shoveling. Hospitals also treated a small number of injuries from sledding and automobile accidents.

Meanwhile, officials from the state's Emergency Management Agency issued a roof collapse alert yesterday.

"The midweek forecast calling for warmer temperatures and rain poses the real threat of roof collapses," MEMA director Stephen J. McGrail said in a news release.

Rick Klein of the Globe staff contributed to this report.