Plows are making life ‘hail’
H’way ice hits homes
While most New Yorkers ride out a blizzard by curling up and getting cozy at home, the residents of Third Avenue in Sunset Park cower in fear.
That’s because with every big storm, icy, bowling ball-sized projectiles from the Gowanus Expressway threaten to smash through their windows.
On a long stretch of the elevated South Brooklyn highway, the Gowanus’ edge is just feet from the facades of the fourstory walkups along the avenue. As speeding city snow plows clear the expressway, ice and snow is catapulted over the low barriers into homes and businesses.
Caitlyn Morales, 9, was playing on her phone in her bedroom during the March 14 snowstorm when ice suddenly shot through two second-floor windows.
“Glass hit me under my eye, scraped my nose and a big one hit my chest,” the little girl recalled. “I saw the blood on my face and that’s when I screamed out for my grandmother. I felt really scared.”
Now, Caitlyn is afraid to stay in her room.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’ll never know if another truck is going to come.”
Her mother, Clarissa Rios, 38, said the family has lived with such fears “for years.”
“When [plows] come by, it sounds like a freight train is coming towards us,” she said. “We can always hear the snow smack against the window . . . It’s been an ongoing issue.”
The heavy sleet and snow during the recent storm was particularly dangerous, breaking more than a dozen windows on Third Avenue between 56th and 58th streets, according to witnesses.
One neighbor was sitting on a bed with her two babies when glass came raining down on them and “cut up” the mom’s legs, according to Rios.
The projectiles also reportedly dented cars and caused the awning of the Pentecostal Church of Jericho to collapse.
“It was like a chain reaction,” Rios said.
The church’s landlord filed a complaint with the city Comptroller’s office and Rios said she plans to sue the city.
“We’re sick and tired of not knowing what to expect,” Rios said.
The Gowanus is a state highway but the city Sanitation Department plows it during storms. The agency said it was unable to identify the plow that might have caused the damage.
Sanitation spokesman Vito Turso said the agency will caution snow-plow drivers before future storms, and may recommend that the state install protective guards along certain stretches of the roadway.