Still a lot of snow left to clear
Residents of Mount Pearl, Paradise and C.B.S. dig in, and out
Joe English and his father, Dennis, have been digging, and digging, and digging out their home and neighbours on McGrath Crescent in Mount Pearl.
“Every day is like a ritual. Get up, look out the window, grimace and get at it,” said Joe English.
“Today’s not so bad, but yesterday and the day before was three or four hours each day. Today is just a couple.”
The crescent in Mount Pearl currently features snowbanks as high as the trees, in some cases. Joe says community spirit isn’t rare in the area, but the weekend storm that brought up to 93 centimetres of snow to the city is exceptional.
“Typically, every storm we’re helping each other out. But this one was out of necessity. It wasn’t just being nice to your neighbour, it wasn’t going to be done unless you helped out,” he said.
For the approximately 44,000 residents of Mount Pearl and Paradise, it’s been four days of wondering where to put the snow.
Both municipalities declared a state of emergency, but lifted some restrictions during certain hours. Mount Pearl’s state of emergency was lifted from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., while Paradise lifted restrictions from 6 a.m. to midnight. Both will take their emergency declarations on a day-to-day basis, with councils meeting regularly to decide the next step.
Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker says as city crews work on moving massive amounts of snow to city dumping areas, residents can do their part to assist by obeying the orders of the city.
“The matter of safety is paramount for us. Residents, if they could please minimize the amount of time that they’re out in the neighbourhoods or on the streets, that would be greatly appreciated,” said Aker.
“Our crews will get out and basically they’ll be able to go through the streets a lot quicker in terms of the effort.”
A crew dedicated to snowclearing hit the streets in Mount Pearl at 8 p.m. Monday to widen roads. Aker says the major thoroughfares are mainly clear, so the focus now shifts more to residential areas that haven’t seen as many plows so far.
In Paradise, where as much as 91 centimetres of snow blankets the ground, Mayor Dan Bobbett says every street has had at least one cut, but with some areas seeing more snow drifting than others, there are challenges all over the town.
“A lot of planning goes into this. When you look at what’s coming, this time we got what was coming. A lot of times you plan, you say, ‘Oh wow, I’m glad we didn’t get the snow they were calling for.’ But this time, we got it,” he said.
Bobbett says an extra snowclearing crew was called on to plow Topsail Road throughout the storm, which helped keep the main artery open for emergency traffic.
Conception Bay South Mayor Terry French says C.B.S. was able to lift its state of emergency on Sunday, thanks in part of local contractors being hired to essentially double snowclearing capacity in the town. But there’s still a long way to go before normalcy returns to the area.
“I want our residents to realize that some of our neighbours are still in a state of emergency. I ask everyone to respect them. They have a host of things they’re dealing with,” said French.
“We’re still widening streets. Shoulders of roads and sidewalks are still very deep. Even though we’ve lifted it, if you don’t have to go out, don’t. Realizing that people have to stock up on food and fuel and so on, by all means do that, but don’t extend your stay. Don’t go for your Sunday drive. If you have to, go out and get things, but stay off the road as best you can.”
An official estimate has not yet been given, but French says he thinks there’s millions of dollars’ worth of damage done to town infrastructure because of the storm surge.
French says some natural features that served to protect the town from the pounding ocean no longer exist, which could spell trouble in future storms.
“We’ve got some big barachois that are no longer existing that were protecting businesses and homes that were not man-made, but nature’s way of protecting us. They’ve now disappeared. We have storm sewers that have washed up and torn out of the ground,” said French.
“We’ve got a significant amount of damage, certainly in the millions and millions of dollars, that we’ll have to deal with.”