City crews in Prince George will be put to the test once again after a Family Day blizzard passed through.
A heavy snowfall event declaration has been made by the city after 33 to 35 centimetres fell over a 24-hour period.
When Prince George receives accumulated snowfall of 20 centimetres or more in a 24-hour period, the City, in cooperation with the RCMP, will issue a Heavy Snowfall Declaration. Declarations extend snow clearing completion time for crews by 24 hours when the threshold is reached. An additional 24 hours is added for every eight centimeters of snow the city receives beyond the initial 20.
During this time, nighttime snow clearing and removal in the Downtown Central Business District as well as Priority One and Priority Two areas will start an hour earlier (11 p.m. instead of 12 a.m.).
Manager of Road and Fleet, Jordan Wiseman told MyPGNow.com plows were already out and about after a smaller weather event occurred.
“City crews, as well as contractors, were out on Saturday and Saturday night as well as Sunday cleaning up from the 10 centimeters of wet snow that fell Friday night into early Saturday morning so crews had already been deployed.”
With Priority one and two routes being cleaned, Wiseman estimates residential areas won’t be touched until Friday or Saturday.
“So cleanup will take a little bit more time than usual but we will get there. Right now, we are concentrating on the priority ones and two’s and our arterials and collectors and we will be moving into residential as soon as they are cleaned up.”
“I think we have it under control. We are just asking for people’s patience while we clean it up as these types of snowfalls are tough to deal with when we get this much snow in such a short period of time,” added Wiseman.
If that wasn’t enough, snow-clearing operations will be given another test as an arctic front sweeps its way through the northern capital over the next 72 hours bringing with it frigid overnight temperatures that could dip to -30, which could impact equipment operation.
“Steel will break, we will have hoses and things like that may leak or provide some challenges but we do have a fantastic fleet operations group that will maintain the equipment and keep it out on the road.”
Prince George could see an additional 10-15 centimetres of snow by the weekend as temperatures warm up and another system rolls through.
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