Followup to our report from the mayor’s post-storm briefing this morning: Just in case you wanted to watch for yourself – we uploaded the mayor’s entire 16-minute briefing, in two parts. We were sitting in the front row in the briefing room, and acoustics were decent, so you can hear reporters’ questions clearly, too. While our video just shows him, two other city officials flanked him at the briefing, though neither spoke at the podium – Grace Crunican, director of Seattle Department of Transportation, and Timothy Croll, director of solid waste for Seattle Public Utilities. First part above, 10 minutes long, includes his opening statement plus some questions; second part below, 6 minutes long, continues with questions – click ahead for that and also a bullet-point list recapping what was announced today:

Here’s the bullet-point recap, first, directly from the city news release summing up the salt-policy change (it’s now online in its entirety here, as well as in our previous post):

In future storms, SDOT will continue to use liquid de-icer but will spread salt under the following emergency conditions:

* if 4 inches or more of snow are predicted
* if ice is predicted
* if extreme cold is predicted to last longer than 3 days
* on hills, arterials, and designated snow bus routes
* on routes to hospitals and other emergency facilities indicated by Fire and Police
* on other facilities as dictated by the professional judgment of the Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Also:
-Five street sweepers are working on clearing the leftover sand, 10 pm-5 am, and the mayor wants to spend $230,000 to add two private street-sweeping crews immediately

-Trash pickup continues to catch up – if you are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pickup and they haven’t gotten to you by tonight, call to report it because as previously reported here, they’re staffing special catch-up crews tomorrow; if you’re Thursday pickup, they’ll get to you Friday (as previously planned under previous holiday scheduling); if you’re Friday pickup, they’ll get to you Saturday. Here’s an explanatory handout from the city.

-People who’ve missed two pickups – as has been the case for many if not most in West Seattle – will get a rebate. The mayor didn’t say how much $; Andy Ryan from Seattle Public Utilities told us afterward that the details are still being worked out. We’ll let you know as soon as said details are available.

-You can hear for yourself by playing the video above (both clips contain this) – but the mayor is NOT going back on the “B” grade he gave the snow response at his last briefing a week ago; he tried to say he meant that was his grade for the city’s workers, but the quote from that day (here’s one account, with video) was that the people were outstanding, the response was a “B.”