DSNY debuts ‘First Line of Defense’ trucks to salt New York City’s highways ahead of looming snowy winter

It’s just snow biz.

The big apple is Prepare for a white wintersanitation officials said Monday — as they showed off their beefed-up arsenal of snow-fighting tools ahead of the city’s first snowfall.

The Sanitation Department unveiled four new salt trucks — bringing its fleet to 17 — to not only prepare ramps on and off major New York City highways, but also cover additional miles of highway for the first time.

“We look at new technology…every year to make this process smoother and more efficient,” said James Miglino, chief of operations for the DSNY office, in the agency’s Hudson Square garage.

The new salt water trucks are DSNY’s “first line of defense” — deployed about 24 hours before expected snowfall — which release liquid sodium brine to prevent snow and ice from sticking, Miglino said.

The agency also plans to bolster its ranks by adding four more saltwater storage tanks across the city by January 2026, which can each store an additional 10,000 gallons, according to DSNY’s snow plan.

New York is expected to get between 17 and 21 inches of snow this winter, compared to less than 13 inches it faced last year, according to AccuWeather.

Once snowfall exceeds two inches of ground coverage, the New York State Department deploys plows on designated roads that clear 19,000 miles of roads, officials said.

More than 2,000 garbage trucks equipped with detachable plows are on standby, while nearly 30 “snowblowers” ​​are ready to burn piles of snow at temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

The new salt water trucks will join the snow squad of ATVs that debuted across the five boroughs last year to salt the city’s protected bike lanes, which Acting DSNY Commissioner Javier Luján said are now treated “on par with vehicular roads.”

In anticipation of higher snowfall, DSNY officials said they are preparing all options for when they go into “snow mode” — even consulting a number of meteorological vendors like AccuWeather, CompuWeather and Metroweather to monitor the situation.

“Our forecast numbers for New York City are conservative right now, but we are still keeping an eye on the potential for a larger impact season,” said Paul Pastelok, AccuWeather’s chief long-range meteorologist.

Snow totals are expected to be well below the city’s winter average of 29.8 inches, according to AccuWeather, while temperatures are expected to remain average.