OTTAWA DIGS OUT AGAIN
Updates from the storm front
It’s mornings like Wednesday that Tyler Larson transforms into a superhero.
A mild-mannered roofer in the summer months, Larson and his comrades at Larson Roofing hitch plows to their fleet of trucks come winter, hitting the snow-choked streets before sunrise to liberate bleary-eyed commuters from the blockade of snow banks forming at the foot of their driveways.
People like Larson were a welcome sight for many in the city Wednesday morning — about as popular as the friendly neighbour with a snowblower to spare — as Ottawa awoke to The Big Dig.
“It’s been going pretty steady all day,” said Larson, who had lost count of the number of driveways he cleared as he approached his 10th consecutive hour in the truck, moving a mountain of snow from the laneway of Charlotte-Lemieux elementary school on Bel-Air Drive.
“Luckily schools were shut down, so people weren’t in our way,” said Larson, who said his biggest challenge was not the waist-deep ridges of snow chunks left in the wake of the larger city plows, but rather navigating around family vehicles lodged where they had been parked.
“You don’t have a choice,” Larson said. “You have to dig them out and get them on their way, and out of our way.”
It was slow-going for many commuters Wednesday, with Ottawa police reporting 32 collisions, most of them minor, by the time the drive home rolled around at 5 p.m.
SCHOOL SNOW DAY
Travel was relatively unhindered, as were the efforts of city snow removal crews, as all four city school boards took the rare step of closing schools Wednesday, including the cancellation of all buses, extended day programs, child care services, community use permits, after-school programs, night school and meetings.
Normal operations are expected to resume Thursday.
Similar school closures and bus cancellations impacted Outaouais and West Quebec school boards, although schools in Kingston remained open.
The University of Ottawa, Carleton University and Algonquin College closed campuses and suspended classes for 24 hours because of the storm, which had dumped a total of 30 centimetres by noon Wednesday, more than doubling the total snowfall for the capital (23 cm total) through the first 12 days of February.
Hash tags like #Snowmageddon and #Snowpocalypse were trending on Twitter.
EMERGENCY SERVICES
Those forced to shovel out were warned to take it easy as paramedics responded to numerous calls for people over-exerting themselves while shovelling snow, which grew denser as temperatures warmed to just above the freezing mark by late morning.
One of the unfortunate was Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, whose council colleagues were wishing him a speedy recovery after he had a heart attack during some “enthusiastic shovelling,” according to a statement he posted on Twitter.
An Orléans man had a heart attack during similar circumstances, and Renfrew County Paramedics pleaded with rural residents to pace themselves.
“This is serious stuff,” the paramedic service tweeted. “We are responding to tragedies across the county today related to people pushing themselves too hard. It’s not worth it.”
CITY SERVICES
According to local weather historian Rolf Campbell, who tweets as @YOW_Weather, it was the largest storm of the winter and matched a storm on Feb. 12-13, 2017, when 29.8 centimetres of snow fell.
City staff worked through the night, said Bryden Denyes, the city’s program manager of operations planning.
“Staff have been working very hard. Our night shift accomplished the big feat of clearing all of the priority road networks for the commute this morning,” Denyes said Wednesday.
“We definitely had some help from residents who stayed home. That helped.
More cars off the road helps us to clear the roads more efficiently and faster. That was a big difference.”
Denyes said plows and blowers were still working on residential sidewalks, and estimated it would be 12 to 14 hours before they were all cleared.
City officials dealing with heavy call volume at the city’s 3-1-1 infoline asked residents to call only if the matter was urgent.
Ottawa and Gatineau both extended winter parking bans into Thursday with no on-street parking between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.
Garbage collection was delayed in Ottawa and Gatineau and was pushed back by one day for the rest of the week, officials said.
FORECAST
Early-rising weather watchers may have suspected something wicked was on its way when sunrise came Tuesday with an ominous red halo as a massive Colorado Low swept into Ontario, blanketing much of the province as the heavy weather system tracked east.
A winter storm warning issued Tuesday by Environment Canada severe weather meteorologists was lifted just before
9 a.m. Wednesday, though winds gusting up to 60 km/h reduced visibility to zero at times with heavy, blowing snow.
Some flurries were expected overnight Wednesday, but skies were expected to open up a bit Thursday.
The forecast called for light snow returning in the evening, but with little accumulation as Friday’s temperatures are expected to reach a high of
2 C with a 40 per cent chance of flurries or possibly rain.
The weekend looks clear and sunny with a return to normal seasonal temperatures around -4 C, and — thankfully for now — no more snowfall.