Actually, this is not only true now... but, AFAIK, has always been so. All you need are winds above 35 mph, sustained for 3 hours or more, and visibility 1/4 mile or less. To get the visibility requirement only takes snow in the air... no accumulation required.
See what happens when you ban God, guns.. and smoking in public. People turn into pansies.
My grandmother was born on the date of the white hurricane AKA The Great Blizzard of 88. March 14, 1888. Fortunately for her and her family she was born in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. But there’s a book on this storm. 20-60 inches of snow. drifts up to 50’ over 400 people died.
I remember going back to the 1950’s people in Queens complaining about favoring Manhattan at the expense of the outer (i.e., other) boroughs when it came to snow removal. I remember the blizzard of 1978, my sister, who lives in Queens, did not have the snow in front of her house removed for two weeks. There was like two feet of snow. It’s hard to bring home groceries by foot.
In Montreal they have a word for that amount of snow- “Spring”.
By having people stay home it reduces the city’s carbon footprint.
I heard about that blizzard from my parents. The difference is, in 1943, there were no snowplows-- the only way to clear the streets was to use shovels, so the Mayor asked everyone to go out and shovel; otherwise, many of the City streets would not have been cleared for weeks. Now that there are City trucks with plows, it is more efficient for people to stay out of the way while the plows clear the streets.
What LaGuardia said in 1943 was in an era when citizens had RESPECT for the government.
An over night dusting in the Sierra Nevada. When the snow burm in your driveway is 4’ tall - then you have a problem.
In the 40’s and very early 50’s a Sanitation Dept Truck full of large shovels would pull up to the corner. A 25cent deposit was charged. You shoveled as long as you liked, for 50cents an hour. Snow was shoveled to the four corners. Large mounds were made, great “forts” to use in snow ball “fights”. When you returned the shovel you received your hourly pat and the deposit. There were supervisors to prevent “cheating”. Today I can imagine every kind of “cheating”. NYC has long lost it’s “neighborhood” concept.(except for the “hood”)