By K. H.
In November 2025, the people of New York City voted for Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, a former NYC Assemblyman who represented New York’s 36th State Assembly district, to become Mayor over his opponents Republican Curtis Sliwa, and Andrew Cuomo who ran as an independent after he lost the Primary earlier that year. It was relatively tight race with a common complaint among voters who voted against Mamdani was that he was just too young and inexperienced to handle being the mayor and that the city needed a much more mature and experienced leader like either of his opponents.
Mamdani was sworn in on New Years Day at Midnight, and he began his job as mayor of this fair city, but people still wondered if he would be able to handle the job while staying committed to his Socialist ideals with his lack of experience. It seemed like things were moving along fine until a Winter Storm was predicted to hit the city January 23rd and was expected to bring with it a foot of snow when he wasn’t even a month into his tenure as mayor.
The Mayor already had the trucks of the DSNY (The Department of Sanitation of New York) turned into snow plows and claimed that the department was “The nation’s largest snow fighting force.” and was ready to do the work the minute the snow fell in a YouTube video titled We’re getting a snowstorm tomorrow. But New York City is prepared. Done in the same style as his campaign ads the previous year. He tried to instill a feeling of safety in the citizens of the city while sharing resources and the information, they’d need in the coming days. This wasn’t all he did when the storm hit since the mayor did his best to make the citizens know he was in the same boat as them and was going to stay in his city to help, unlike Governor Ted Cruz of Texas who left his state when the storm came his state’s way.
He achieved this by the mayor helping and shoveling snow when the storm calmed down, and the people of the city had to deal with the snow left from it. Sadly, despite his best efforts around 15 people died because of the winter conditions with most of them being unhoused people who were unable to get the help they needed.
Some sections of the city were without power, and the sidewalks still weren’t clear in the days following the storm, but that was soon rectified, and life returned to normal for the city.
Then the blizzard came with 19 inches of snow in early February.
New Yorkers were once again terrified and began to panic thinking it was going to be even worse with myself thinking I was going to be without power when the storm hit, but Mamdani was ready this time. He rallied the trucks once more to salt and plow the streets, and he decided that it was time to change something when it came to those shoveling snow. He upped their pay to $30 an hour leading to the sidewalks being cleared incredibly fast, and he gave the kids of New York a full snow day while he was at it.
In the wake of the blizzard, you’d imagine that we’d see the same if not more people die as a result, but I am happy to tell you that you that no one died because of the blizzard. Really besides the occasional loss of power which were quickly rectified the only controversy from this blizzard was that some people were angry Mamdani didn’t do anything when some citizens threw regular snowballs at police officers during a large-scale snowball fight.
All the mayor had to say on the topic was “I’ve said time and time again that, having seen these videos, to me it was a snowball fight that got out of hand and it should be treated accordingly,” when asked if anyone should be prosecuted.
Overall, I’d say this is personally one of the best winters this city has had. Could Mamdani have done more when the Winter Storm hit? Yes, but he also saw this and was determined to make it, so no one had to die when the Blizzard and he succeeded in that and that’s the best you can hope for in situations like this.
Spring 2026 
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