PRINCE GEORGE, BC: Staff with the City of Prince George have completed the clearing of roads and sidewalks after the City received about half a metre (50cm) of snow in a week. On December 22, the City issued a Heavy Snowfall Declaration after about 35cm of snow fell in a 24-hour period.

Through the Christmas holidays, an additional seven centimetres of snow fell onto already snow-clogged streets and then another seven to nine centimetres of snow fell this week. When the city receives accumulated snowfall of 20cm or more in a day a Heavy Snowfall Declaration is issued. An additional 24 hours is added for every eight cm of snow the city receives beyond the threshold.

“Our crews undertook the huge job of tackling a record-breaking snow event and have been working long shifts through nights, record-low temperatures, and the holiday season to bring our streets into a passable condition,” says Jordan Wiseman, Manager of Roads and Fleet. “We were able to meet the extended timeline in Council’s Heavy Snowfall Declaration. It was a tough job well done. I would like to thank crews for their outstanding efforts.”

The work to bring the City’s roughly 700 kilometers of roads and nearly 200 kilometers of sidewalks to passable condition continues with much of the City’s efforts focussed on clearing the large windrows from major thoroughfares throughout the city. These windrows are a necessary part of bringing streets into decent condition immediately following large snowfalls and removing them is not included as part of the timelines allocated by the Snow and Ice Control Policy.

However, in the past day the City has been increasing its windrow removal operations with about 450 dump truck loads of windrowed snow removed from roads last night. Through the weekend, if there are no additional snow accumulations, the City aims to take an additional 500 to 600 loads of windrowed snow each night to the City’s snow dumps. In less than a week, that will amount to more than enough snow to fill up the CN Centre! If there is additional snowfall this weekend, crews will be diverted back to snow clearing on roads and sidewalks.

In addition to road crews, staff with the City’s parks division provided snow clearing for the more than two dozen civic facilities, including the pools, arenas, libraries, and Canada Games Plaza. They also cleared approximately 20 kilometers of the City’s most popular trails, such as those in Ginter’s Meadow, Cottonwood Island Nature Park, and Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.

Road crews also worked collaboratively with Bylaw Services to ticket and/or remove vehicles that were impairing snow clearing operations. Since the start of the snow event, Bylaw Services issued:

• 10 warnings and nine tickets for violating the City’s winter parking restrictions.
• Six tickets for interfering with snow removal.
• Two vehicles were towed for either violating winter parking restrictions or interfering with snow removal.

Over 30 complaints were received regarding plowed-in vehicles, vehicles interfering with snow removal, or vehicles parked in contravention of the winter parking restrictions.