Boxing Day snowfall slows city's efforts to clear roadways
After the “exceptional” Dec. 21 and 22 snowfall in Calgary, the city's snow-removal crews were working overtime to clear priority one and two routes before moving into residential neighbourhoods. But a smaller snowfall on Boxing Day put them back to Square 1.
The city's seven-day snow-removal program was reset Dec. 26 after a few more centimetres added to the feet of snow still on the ground and crews are just now getting back to priority two routes such as Acadia Drive and Kensington Road.
Chris Mcgeachy with the city's roads department said weekend crews had started flatblading in residential neighbourhoods before the most recent snowfall but that it will be another day or two before they can begin again.
“Our plan is to focus on those priority three and four routes starting tomorrow … Our crews will be doing the flatblading technique and continuing to work and doing their best to mitigate the creation of windrows and responding to service requests as they come,” he said.
The city's 311 line has been inundated with thousands of calls in the week since the snowfall and Mcgeachy said crews work to get to problem and dangerous areas as soon as possible.
“We had about 27 per cent of our annual average accumulation (of snow) in a 24-hour period or the equivalent of 5-10 typical snow storms that we would see in a year so it was obviously an exceptional snow event and we're still working with the snow we had on the weekend,” he said.
“We had to shift our focus back to those main routes but we do anticipate we'll be spending a lot of time this week in the residential areas.”
The snow created havoc on the roads and, for some, brought about unforeseen issues accessing health care in their own homes.
Sue Rock said her good friend, who is severely disabled, was “abandoned” twice overnight in his home due to the care workers' inability to leave their homes or drive into and out of the crescent where he lives.
CBI Health Group, the organization in charge of his care, is a contractor of Alberta Health Care that provides in-home care for elderly and disabled clients still living independently.
They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gerry Gatto, owner of Senior Homecare by Angels, said his organization had some considerable difficulties getting to patients' homes in many snowed-in residential neighbourhoods and wouldn't be surprised if other agencies did, too.
“The day after the snowfall we were completely shut down, our caregivers were unable to get out of their driveways,” he said. “The city has done a wonderful job on the main thoroughfares but the residential streets were completely blocked off.”
Gatto said they had to prioritize critical-care patients and used a few employees' four-wheel-drive vehicles to taxi caretakers to clients' homes.
“The stress the first few days was really high because we didn't know if we could even get there with the trucks,” he said. “We even had a few caregivers just stay overnight so a 12-hour shift turned into a 24hour shift but it was the only way to handle it.”
Things are back on track for Gatto's company but he worries about ambulances' ability to get in and out of some residential streets.
“We have an obligation to provide support especially to the most critical in need so that was our only way of handling it … Taking our caregivers to our clients' homes, and I did that all week long.”