Saint John 'snow-pocalypse' cleanup could take 3 more weeks

The City of Saint John says it could take up to another three weeks to finish cleaning up from Sunday's snow storm, with as many as 40 streets that haven't even been touched yet, due to challenging weather conditions and crew fatigue.

Meanwhile, the city has already spent the $5 million it had budgeted for snow-clearing operations for the entire calendar year.

In an average year, Saint John hauls away 2,711 truckloads of snow from city streets. But in the last two weeks alone, city crews have had to move more than 17,000 truckloads of snow.

"It's a very costly exercise," said Kevin Rice, the city's deputy commissioner of transportation and environmental services.

The latest storm on Sunday dumped more than 30 centimetres of snow in Saint John.

"We’ve had a snow-pocalypse. We’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve been asking for patience. We have all of our resources being thrown at the storm and we’re going to continue with that until the job is done."

Despite having 50 plow operators on the roads each day and another 26 at night, Rice estimates between 30 and 40 streets and many sidewalks still hadn't seen a plow by Tuesday afternoon.

Areas of Fundy Heights, Lakewood Heights, Heatherway and Millidgeville are presenting a particular challenge, with extreme drifting and heavy snow making it impossible to remove snow with regular plowing equipment, the city said in a statement.

Time off for safety

In addition, the city is unable to operate with full crews.

"Because of fatigue experienced as a result of the extended weather (21 days), some crew members have requested time away from the operation," the statement said. "This is for the safety of our crews and for public safety. We continue to monitor for fatigue."

Sand Cove Road on the city's west side was among the streets that had only been partially plowed, as of Tuesday afternoon.

​Willa Mavis' home was one of about six at the end of the street that were left snowed in.

"You can see behind me where the plow came and actually plowed more snow as a barrier almost onto Sand Cove Road and then turned around and left. It was like they were saying 'Well that's good enough.'"

Mavis says her husband has serious health issues and has needed to be taken by ambulance before. If an emergency were to happen today, she says they wouldn't know what to do.

"I've told my husband he's not allowed to do anything stressful … I sort of have him wrapped in cotton batten to make sure that nothing does happen until we get plowed out.- Willa Mavis, Sand Cove Road resident

"I've told my husband he's not allowed to do anything stressful. He can't shovel snow. He can't work in the basement. I sort of have him wrapped in cotton batten to make sure that nothing does happen until we get plowed out," she said.

Crews were beginning greater city-wide efforts on Tuesday to clear all roads, including the rest of Sand Cove Road.

"Drifting snow has caused us a lot of grief over the last day on our priority one and two roads," that need to be cleared for emergency vehicles, said Rice. "We’re at a point now where we can at least not have to contend with the wind. We can get out and can start working on those priority three and four roads," he said.

Several of the streets that haven't been plowed yet also require special equipment to get the job done, said Rice.

"The regular equipment that we use to plow our priority three and four streets isn't able to get through the snow drifts and plow the street properly. So we have to divert heavier equipment, such as a loader with a large loader blower, and try to remove as much snow as possible," he said.

"We're probably looking at at least two to three weeks of work, just to be able to push everything back," said Rice.

"We're at a point right now where we're pushing snow back as far as we can, to the point where we plow it, the snow is just falling right back in behind us because of the high banks. And when we get to that stage, there is not much we can do, other than bring in our large loader blowers."

The city has four loader blowers, which move slower than regular plows, he said.