Winter storm created transportation chaos

Ariella Pahlke figured she’d given herself plenty of time to get from Truro to Bedford for parent-teacher meetings.

But this was Thursday afternoon, and the changing weather meant the drive wasn’t going to be a picnic.

The filmmaker was returning from a screening in Sydney and headed south onto Highway 102 at about 5:30 p.m.

“I thought I was early,” Pahlke said in an interview Friday.

The road was wet and drivers seemed to be taking it easy, she said, until there was no choice but to put it in park.

“It just ground to a halt, just after Elmsdale. Just between the Elmsdale and the Enfield exits, the traffic just completely stopped, and I was there in the exact same place for three hours and 45 minutes.”

Frustrated with the lack of information, Pahlke got out in the middle of the road and took a picture she posted to Facebook.

“People started texting me, like, ‘What is going on?’ ‘I have no idea.’”

She was one of many who weathered a cascade of gridlock that spread from the Halifax region Thursday.

The patience of urban commuters was tested from about mid-afternoon well into the evening, as hard rain transitioned to heavy, wet snow. The fluctuating conditions combined with the urge of many to head home, creating traffic chaos.

“It was definitely a bit of an interesting scenario,” said MaggieJane Spray, a spokeswoman for Halifax Regional Municipality.

“With the mix of snow and rain, it really presented some challenging conditions for the winter crews. For example, if salt had been put down earlier, when it was still raining, it would have all dissolved or been washed away before the snow arrived.”

But that made the misery snowball, as transit buses and work crews were eventually stuck in the same traffic as everyone else.

“The situation certainly seemed to change a fair bit as the afternoon went on,” Spray said Friday.

As the afternoon creeped on, several collisions and abandoned vehicles meant complaints of being hours late getting anywhere were common on social media.

Some bus passengers vented on social media that there was no timely information about their options. Spray said Halifax Transit is promising to do better.

“Unfortunately, it should have been done better,” she said.

“The focus for operations staff (Thursday) was on the service loss in light of the storm conditions and, despite this, we should have done better at communicating that to the public.”

Predictably, the winter weather led to electricity outages that lingered into Friday. By mid-afternoon, Nova Scotia Power was reporting about 5,700 customers across the province waiting to get reconnected.

Halifax Stanfield International Airport told travellers Friday morning that operations had begun to return to normal after Thursday’s storm. Several flight delays and cancellations were still on the board, so travellers were urged to check their flight status before heading to the airport.

The runways were closed Thursday afternoon as 15 to 20 centimetres of wet, heavy snow fell in about five hours. By 11 p.m., things were in better shape at the terminal.

Around the province Thursday, Transportation Department staff were monitoring weather reports and adjusting plans as the precipitation changed from rain to snow, said spokeswoman Marla MacInnis.

Based on forecasts, staff were doing road patrols, plowing and salting, MacInnis said.

“Rush-hour traffic and poor conditions for salting as rain rapidly changed to snow made efforts to clear roadways challenging,” she said in an email Friday.

The full winter complement of operators does not begin work until Sunday, but the department’s regular staff are ready to respond, said MacInnis.

The department encourages drivers to call 511 or check the provincial highway cameras for road conditions before travelling.

For some in the region, Thursday’s weather foreshadows things to come. Cindy Day, chief meteorologist for SaltWire Network, said cold air behind the low-pressure system will trigger bands of heavy snow along northwestfacing coastlines through Saturday afternoon, with some areas likely to get accumulations of about 40 centimetres.

Everyone out in the elements Thursday has a story. The drama for Pahlke ended when she got home at 12:15 a.m. Friday. She missed parent-teacher meetings but said her situation could have been way worse.

“Luckily, I had enough gas in my car,” she said.

“I had an audiobook. I was doing some work. I was by myself. I had a bag of party mix.”