New York City has 330,000 tons of salt on hand to clear its streets.

Even before the snow began falling in New York City on Wednesday afternoon, the Department of Sanitation had turned away from its daily trash collecting and toward the plowing of the city’s 6,300 miles of streets.

“You never truly know what a storm like this is going to throw at you, but we are as ready as we can be,” said Edward Grayson, the department’s acting commissioner.

The department has 6,300 employees available to work during the storm and some 2,000 vehicles to plow the streets — from trash collection trucks temporarily equipped with plow attachments to dedicated plowing vehicles that also spread rock salt and a brine solution to melt snow, Mr. Grayson said.

The city also has 330,000 tons of salt on hand, piled high in sheds across the city, Mr. Grayson said as he inspected part of his removal fleet in a sanitation garage in downtown Manhattan. Its plows would continue in full force until the streets are cleared, which could be Friday if the storm is extremely severe, Mr. Grayson said.

Clearing the streets will be more complicated than ever, he said, because plows have to carefully avoid the many kiosks set up in the street for outdoor dining during the coronavirus pandemic.