Saint John residents are urged to be patient in the aftermath of this weekend’s severe snow and ice storm.
Ice pellets, rain and freezing temperatures Sunday into Monday left streets and sidewalks in rough shape.
While the situation had improved by Tuesday, many sidewalks throughout the city were still difficult to navigate.
“In terms of that mixed precipitation, it’s certainly been one of the most challenging [storms this winter],” Tim O’Reilly, the city’s public works director, said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
” The one that occurred just before Christmas was certainly more challenging on the accumulation side. But yeah, this one was more challenging because of the mixing precipitation and temperatures.”
Could take weeks to remove all of the ice
All available equipment is in operation to salt and sand roads and sidewalks, as well as clear as much ice and snow as possible from these areas.
However, O’Reilly acknowledged it will take days — if not weeks — for all of the ice to be removed or fully melt, especially with the colder temperatures.
“Salt typically works to about minus 10. Once you get below that, salt is fairly ineffective. So once we drop into those temperatures, which we are today, for example, we do move into a salt-sand mix to provide that traction on streets and sidewalks,” he said.
“Until we get those temperatures up a little bit higher, it’s very difficult to get any remaining ice off of those streets and sidewalks.”
But O’Reilly said they are not simply relying on the salt to melt the ice. The city has some “fairly robust” equipment that can help deal with the ice, he said, but it will be a slow process.
“We have loaders and graders to provide a lot more downforce, so we do use those in some locations to really eat into the ice. We do also have blowers on both our sidewalk units and our loaders for the city, which can chew into some fairly significant ice as well,” he added.
Parking ban compliance an issue
A number of residents have taken to social media throughout the winter months to complain about a lack of snow clearing on streets and sidewalks in their neighbourhoods.
O’Reilly said while they have been generally “quite good” at meeting the established street clearing timelines after a storm, sidewalks have “definitely been more challenging” this winter.
“It doesn’t take too big of a storm to challenge us from being able to accomplish our sidewalk clearing deliverables. So certainly, we’ve been more challenged to complete our sidewalk deliverables,” he said.
The public works director said they have been experiencing compliance challenges during overnight parking bans, which are meant to help make it easier for crews to clear snow and ice off the streets.
An average of 80 to 100 tickets are issued each night, he said, but crews are only able to tow a fraction of the offending vehicles off the streets.
O’Reilly said the city plans to issue street-by-street parking bans over the coming days to help with the clean-up efforts.
Temporary no parking signs will be posted at least eight hours in advance of snow clearing efforts. Any remaining vehicles will face enforcement in the form of fines and potentially towing.
“We kindly ask everyone to prioritize safety by allowing extra time for travel, wearing appropriate footwear with grippers, and driving with caution on slippery roads,” the city said in a news release.
