Snowy winter challenges city
Mayor says staff working around-the-clock in anticipation of Friday's blizzard
With a major blizzard on the horizon, St. John's Mayor Danny Breen told reporters Thursday the city is prepared to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of residents, even if that means calling a state of emergency.
“Right now, our resources are ready,” Breen said, joined at the city depot by Coun. Ian Froude, council lead for public works. “We've done what we can and are continuing to do the blowback and the other work, and we'll deal with the snow as it comes. We've seen the forecast. We know what to expect. Our staff are ready, and we're going to continue to open up the street, and we'll take whatever action we need to do in order to ensure safety for the residents of the city.”
Forecasts for Friday into Saturday morning have called for 50-70 centimetres of snow for the northeast Avalon, with potential wind gusts of 140 km/h. The severity of the looming blizzard comes during a winter in which the city has already experienced a lot of snow — 170 centimetres since December, according to a news release from the city.
CHALLENGING WINTER
“The biggest challenge has been the consecutiveness of that snow,” Breen said, noting this has caused some delays as city staff have been forced to go back and tend to high-priority areas.
On Thursday, the city initiated daytime snow removal for the Georgestown area.
“Over the past few days, our staff have been working very hard around the clock,” Breen said. “They've been removing more snow. They've been blowing back and widening to give us space for snow storage for the upcoming storm.”
As of Thursday, approximately 80 per cent of the city's sidewalk routes were open, Breen said.
The availability of sidewalks and the width of roads in the city has been a contentious issue of late, particularly in light of a high volume of vehicle-pedestrian accidents since the beginning of the new year.
“We budget for around 350 centimetres of snow a year,” the mayor said, later noting the overall budget for snowclearing in St. John's is $18 million. “We have all our workers out and all our equipment out to do that.”
Breen said he understands the frustrations of residents regarding the handling of roads and sidewalks.
Froude, who walks around the city, said the city has purchased new equipment the last two years to improve sidewalk snowclearing, but the volume of snow falling so far has challenged the city's ability to keep up with the work that needs to be done.
“Those crews, sidewalk- and road-clearing crews, are out there now and they're doing their best to remove the snow and keep those areas open,” he said, adding the city has heard from residents about its allocation of snowclearing resources and will continue to look at finding the best ways to make use of them.
PROVINCIAL PLANNING
Transportation and Works Minister Steve Crocker and
Municipal Affairs and Environment Minister Derrick Bragg also met with reporters to discuss the provincial government's plans for the blizzard.
Crocker said his department's vehicles will be out to clear snow Friday as weather permits, noting if visibility becomes a problem, they would be pulled off the provincial roads.
“Our mechanics have been working diligently to make sure all our equipment is in shape,” he said, noting his department and Bragg's have been in touch with Fire and Emergency Services, police and Eastern Health. “We want to make sure that we're ready, but we do know that … in all likelihood at times tomorrow, it will not be safe to put crews on the road.”
Crocker said equipment from western Newfoundland was coming to the eastern half of the island in anticipation of Friday's storm, and private contractors would also be put to use as needed.
“We know that in all likelihood we're going to have road closures (Friday) and this is not going to end at 8:30 Saturday morning. This is going to be a weekend-long event, and we realize we're going to have a lot of work to do to get us to Monday morning.”
Crocker and Bragg both advised the public to stay safe and avoid taking needless risks by leaving their homes.
“When the visibility gets down and when you can't see, the operators can't see,” Bragg said. “If everyone can stay home, stay safe, be safe in their house, because if you're not safe, you'll cause an incident that causes our emergency and first responders to get out, and then it endangers the lives of operators that are out. … If you have 30 firefighters trying to get out in zero visibility, you will endanger people's lives.”