Chastened Bloomberg fights to save reputation after string of snow-removal snafus 
 
 Ward for News Mayor Bloomberg briefs the press about the city's response to the blizzard at OEM Headquarters in Brooklyn. 
 
 A testy Mayor Bloomberg fended off criticism of the city's failure to clear hundreds of snow-choked streets Tuesday as an avalanche of critics attacked his reputation as a supermanager. 
 
 "This mayor prides himself on saying the buck stops with him, and it should. We hold him responsible for what we're calling theBloomberg Blizzard," said CityCouncilman David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn). 
 
 "The whole world is laughing that the greatest city in the world cannot manage to clear the streets. New York today looks like a Third World country." 
 
 Greenfield, normally a backer of the mayor, said every side street - and some larger avenues - in Borough Park were waiting for a plow 30 hours after the storm's end. 
 
 Similar and worse complaints were heard from much of the snow-buried city outside Manhattan. 
 
 A Queens woman's death Monday was blamed on the backlog of911 calls and on snow-clogged streets that delayed first responders from reaching her Corona home, said state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Queens). 
 
 "Like many New Yorkers, I woke up two days straight to an unplowed street outside my frontdoor," said city Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. "This is not business as usual, and frustration is mounting." 
 
 Bloomberg asked for patience. 
 
 "This storm is not like any other we've had to deal with," he said. "We are doing everything we canthink of, working as hard as wecan." 
 
 He traveled to hard-hit Brooklyn and acknowledged the anger of people whose streets hadn't been plowed. "I'm angry, too," he said. 
 
 Bloomberg insisted city workers were doing their best. "We won't get to everybody every time," he said. "Yelling about it and complaining doesn't help." 
 
 Still, the chorus of complaints about the city's sluggish response was just getting revved up. 
 
 "This is unacceptable," said CityCouncil Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), who set a Jan. 10 hearing on how the storm was handled. 
 
 "The mayor has to stop acting like 'Baghdad Bob' saying the streets are fine. No they aren't. Where the hell are the plows?" Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) wrote on Facebook. 
 
 "Seniors are trapped at home with little or no food. Emergency vehicles aren't able to respond to emergencies," said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn). "This lack of response from the city cannot go unanswered." 
 
 Mike for President? Ha! 
 
 Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said city residents outside Manhattan scoffed at Bloomberg's vaunted management skills. "He wants to run for President? Can you imagine a national catastrophe or crisis if hecan't even plow the streets ofthe Bronx?" Diaz said. ||||| Have you ever watched a child play with toy trucks? Like, backhoes and front-end loaders and other heavy machinery made of plastic? They love to drive and smash them around, as if the light toys were actually causing serious damage, or at least doing some heavy lifting. Well, that's what it's like to watch these Sanitation Department workers attempting to pull a snowplow out of an embankment on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights yesterday. Except the massive machines that are floundering about are very much real, and they are very much destroying a white Ford Explorer and the cars around it. If you watch the video with the sound turned off (which we kind of recommend at first because the guy who filmed it is firing off expletives left and right), it almost looks innocent and silly. But then when you listen to the crunching noises, you realize what kind of damage these things are actually doing. The kicker? The Ford that received the brunt of the damage was a city-owned vehicle. [via NYP]
– Rough day for Mayor Bloomberg, who faced the media to plead for patience with storm cleanup. He was at various times "chastened" (Daily News), "testy" (New York Post), "conciliatory" (New York Times) and even sarcastic—as when he replied, "I regret everything in the world" after being pressed on the city's response amid mounting criticism. Scores of streets remain unplowed, and the mayor said he couldn't guarantee crews would get to them in the next 24 hours. "This storm is not like any other we’ve had to deal with,” he said. “We are doing everything we possibly can.” At another point, he interrupted a question to say, "I'm angry, too." The overall tone was a marked contrast to yesterday's news conference, notes the Times, the one in which he declared: “The world has not come to an end. The city is going fine.” Click here to see street crews destroy a Ford Explorer, and not on purpose.