(a) Whenever, during any period of twenty hours or less, snow falls in the City or in a section thereof to a depth of two inches or more, an emergency is declared to exist in that such a heavy snow storm constitutes a serious public hazard impairing transportation, the moving of food and fuel supplies, medical care, fire, health and public protection and other vital facilities of the City. Such emergency shall continue until an announcement, by the Mayor, that snow plowing operations have been completed, which announcement should be made in the manner provided in subsection (b) hereof.
(b) Whenever such an emergency exists, the Mayor shall request the cooperation of the local press and radio and television stations to announce the emergency and the time that emergency parking regulations are to become effective, which time shall be no sooner than one hour after the first announcement to such news media. Such announcement to the news media shall constitute notice to the general public of the existence of the emergency. However, the owners and operators of motor vehicles shall have full responsibility to determine existing weather conditions and to comply with emergency parking regulations.
(c) During the period of such emergency, the Mayor may prohibit the parking of any vehicle upon any or all of the City streets, notwithstanding any conflicting ordinances regulating off-street parking. During such emergency, no person shall park or cause or permit to be parked or abandon or leave unattended any vehicle of any kind upon such public streets. The Mayor may direct the Police Department to tow any violating vehicle. However, vehicles may be parked for a period of not longer than three minutes for actual loading or unloading of passengers or thirty minutes for actual loading or unloading of property, provided that no other provision of this Traffic Code or other ordinance restricting parking as to place or time is violated thereby. The Mayor may close certain streets to motor vehicular traffic or designate certain streets temporarily not to be used by commercial or heavy vehicles until the emergency conditions have passed.
(d) During any such excessive snowfall in which the Mayor invokes this section, no person shall cause any accumulation of ice or snow to be placed upon a public street from private premises.
(e) Whoever violates or fails to comply with any of the provisions of this section, or with any order issued under authority of this section, is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree. Punishment shall be as provided in Section 408.01.
(Ord 78-22. Passed 2-20-78. )