Agreed, Poppa. The snow we get in Maine on a regular basis would shut down NYC for a week. There, they attach plows to their sanitation trucks for plowing - cumbersome and no trash gets picked up. It gets plowed under.
Here there are real plows clearing the mess as it accumulates. 14" may mean a late opening for some but not a closure. My office closed early (4PM) once this year. No late openings.
The power outage after the ice storm was inconvenient and I took the day off but the office opened on time and stayed open until 5PM despite on/off power all day.