Cold spell shows time has come for a Nassau County 311 system

The first eight days of February brought us temperatures 12 degrees below normal, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Goodman. The duration of freezing temperatures since Jan. 23 — combined with the most recent arctic blast of wind-driven snow — has been the longest for our area in decades, according to the weather service.

Pipes freeze and burst. Roads become slick with ice. Utilities must respond to unusually heavy fuel demands. Then there are the frozen snow piles refusing to melt in this extended freeze that’s only modestly begun to break. Long Islanders intrepidly waiting for buses this month have been feeling the unending brunt.

The snow mounds have been intrusively visible along the routes of the Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) public bus system. By the middle of last week, the system reported having cleared more than 1,200 stops. But more work remained.

In Suffolk, Newsday's news division found last week that a westbound Route 6 location on Veterans Memorial Highway was still snowed in. The choices for a passenger waiting for the bus consisted of either waiting on the highway shoulder, at the entryway for a nearby shopping center, or perching on the icy crust surrounding the stop. She ventured onto the ice.

In Nassau, responsibility for clearing the bus stops and providing a pedestrian path to them is divided between property owners and NICE. For the many work crews, coordination and communication are necessary, if only to clarify who's supposed to be doing what.

That is why Nassau Legis. Olena Nicks' official proposal this week for a countywide, nonemergency 311 call system is especially timely. The Town of North Hempstead commenced its own 311 system in 2005, two years after New York City. Suffolk County has had one since 2019. During the current freeze, a county spokesperson asked county residents to contact 311 to report trouble spots.

Nicks told the editorial board that a Nassau 311 system would help "a thousand percent." For example, a resident could submit online cellphone photos to show the condition to a public works department rather than rely on verbal description.

These 311 systems relieve the vital 911 lines of calls about potholes, sanitation complaints, street light outages and other nonemergencies. Currently the 911 system reportedly faces staff shortages and burnout. Nicks acknowledged that the county would need to work with its unionized workforce to create a fully staffed new call center.

It’s a major project with big cost considerations, that right now is pushed by the legislature's Democratic minority. But the Blakeman administration and the GOP majority should work constructively to bring it to fruition. A county with 1.4 million residents needs to catch up with its neighbors on this to deal with exigencies large and small, including those forced by bad weather.