National Guard, New York/New Jersey Crews Heed Revere’s Call Out for Help

Crews from the National Guard, from New York and from New Jersey have joined the fight against snow in Revere this week – with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito taking a firsthand view of those efforts on Broadway Tuesday morning.

“We’ve sent held down to New York before to help out and now they’re returning the favor,” said Mayor Dan Rizzo. “We’ve always worked well together when the situation mandates it.”

Fire Chief Gene Doherty said the state Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) had stationed crews from New York in Revere for two days and a crew from New Jersey in Revere for a little  more than a day.

“They were here removing snow and moving snow for a few days over the weekend until the governor pulled them out to work on the MBTA situation,” he said. “We’re expecting another crew to come back in Wednesday (Feb. 18). We also will have crews here from the National Guard this week to shovel out hydrants for us. Firefighters have been out every day, twice a day, for two hours at a time shoveling hydrants. We really appreciate the break.”

Additionally, Mayor Rizzo and Supt. Paul Dakin have combined their budgets to hire work crews from Buffalo and Syracuse to expedite cleanup efforts.

On Monday night, crews were busy on Broadway removing the towering snow banks that have challenged pedestrians, businesses and drivers.

Bill Marciello of Designer Optical on Broadway said he was very happy to see that crews had completely removed the snow from the business district when he arrived on Tuesday.

“I really appreciate the mayor getting the cleanup in the Broadway business district done,” he said. “I really enjoyed coming back to work on Tuesday and having all the snow cleared up. It was a terrific help.”

Crews were expected to move to other parts of the City on Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Doherty said it’s going to take a lot of time, effort and money to get the streets back to normal.

“The Mayor is really committed to getting it all done and worrying about the bill later,” he said.

He also added that the City has received a waiver from the DCR to dump snow into the Atlantic Ocean at specific dump sites.

However, he said they will likely not use that option as Suffolk Downs has generously allowed the City to use its open space for a snow farm.