Winter storm slides into province with rain, wind and power outages
City road crews have equipment ready as streets expected to `shine up' with ice
With severe winds and a mix of freezing rain and snowfall in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, the City of Regina set its sights on ice control on slippery roads and walkways.
Most of the province was put under a storm warning, with Environment Canada forecasting freezing rain and high winds. In Regina, as the freezing rain warning ended the wind started to pick up.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Tyler Bien, the manager of roadways seasonal operation, said city crews were readying for 100 km/h winds to blow in on Wednesday night bringing five centimetres of snow.
Bien said 50 pieces of equipment were ready to go when or if needed to clear or sand roads.
“During a snow event the city focuses on high speed roads and high priority intersections along with roads with the greatest volume and emergency routes,” said Bien. While five centimetres of snow is not terribly significant, the rain experienced earlier in the day, thawing then freezing conditions and the high winds will “shine up” roads, said Bien.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, Regina police reported a few crashes, but no serious injuries.
The City of Regina declared snow routes in effect from 6 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday. This means there is no on-street parking along the identified routes for a 24-hour period to allow crews to plow the roads from curb to curb, improving traffic flow along the busy roadways. As well, it helps make roads passable for emergency vehicles.
Blue signs with a white snowflake help identify where there is no parking during the 24-hour ban. Vehicles which remain parked on the snow route during the temporary parking ban will be ticketed.
Check out the map on Regina.ca/ snowroutes to learn where snow routes are located.
Saskpower responded to three unplanned power outages in the city by 1 p.m., including a blackout spanning Cathedral and downtown that knocked out phones at Regina provincial court and caused rescheduling of appearances for anyone set to appear Wednesday afternoon.
Another large outage was reported in the rural area east of Regina around the same time. Customers were affected in Mclean, Qu'appelle, Indian Head, Odessa and Vibank.
In a news release issued Tuesday as it braced for the coming storm, the city stated sander trucks would continuously monitor and apply sand/salt to the Category 1-4 road network, which includes major roadways, hospital and transit routes, commercial areas and areas near schools, as needed.
The city also offers free sand for public use to keep sidewalks and driveways safe. Residents were encouraged to bring their own container and fill it up with sand to use on their sidewalks and driveways.
Find sandbox locations at Regina.ca/winter.
Because of the expected high winds, the city landfill temporarily reduced the size of the tipping area to control the amount of airborne litter and debris.
On Wednesday, Faisail Kalim, manager of solid waste operations, said crews are monitoring the weather, especially the wind speeds, and have set fences in the dump to keep detritus and garbage within the site.
Kalim said there should be no interruption of garbage collection in the city.
If wind speeds are measured at 65 km/h or wind gusts equal or exceed 90 km/h, the landfill will close operations and not accept waste until the weather passes.
For more information, check out Regina.ca/landfill.