Christie lauds New Jersey’s blizzard response

“We know how to do it. We’re pretty experienced at it”.

Chris Christie said Saturday that the Garden State “dodged a bit of a bullet” in regard to the winter storm, a response that some residents don’t necessarily agree with.

This weekend’s snow storm was the 17 snow emergency in Christie’s six years as governor of New Jersey.

Christie’s rise to national fame before his presidential run was fueled in part by his hands-on approach to managing major weather events in the state, notably Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Irene in 2011. In late December 2010, during the same storm that led to Christie’s Disney World headlines, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg faced mounting criticism for the slow pace of cleanup after one of the largest snowstorms in New York City history.

The blizzard arrived early and forcefully, causing meteorologists to double snowfall predictions in the Northeast, but Governor Christie says New Jersey was prepared. He’s one of several candidates doubling down on their efforts in New Hapshire ahead of the state’s primary February 9.

Lawmakers in New Jersey were also critical.

Christie firing off a series of tweets Friday afternoon saying he was putting his role as governor first but promising to return to New Hampshire to campaign soon. He said the dune work should not be hindered by “a few very selfish homeowners” and their “selfish lawyers”, citing opposition raised by residents in the coastal towns of Margate and Point Pleasant Beach. It’s a complicated issue, and in some cases I agree with Christie’s opinion, but browbeating towns in the middle of a historic storm isn’t leadership – it’s politics, and really has no place during an emergency briefing.

“Whether it’s an impending storm or whether it’s the scourge of radical Islamic jihadist terrorism, you have to make people be safe and secure”, Christie said during his Sunday afternoon town hall in Portsmouth, N.H.

Voting yes or no in the United States Senate every day, sitting where they tell you to sit, coming when they tell you to come, leaving when they tell you to leave, it sounds like school to me, and not like the kind of job that the presidency is.

“We do want to make sure people are very, very careful”, McCrory said.

“To the young people of New Jersey”, Christie said, “go and shovel as much as you like – not yet, not yet – but a little bit later”.

CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked de Blasio about a 2014 storm in which neighborhoods of NY felt they were under-served by storm response intentionally.