By Scott Roblin

Medicine Hat crews prepared to tackle winter storm

Feb 7, 2018 | 4:27 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A thick blanket of snow is set to fall on Medicine Hat, as winter storm warnings spread across the province.

Up to 35 centimetres before Friday could be on the way after Environment Canada upgraded their winter storm watch to a winter storm warning on Wednesday morning.

City operations engineer Craig Maunder said he’s keeping a close eye of the upcoming forecast.

“One of our biggest tasks is to actually just monitor the weather and make sure we’re allocating the resources for this evening, as well as the next day appropriately based on what we see.”

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The heaviest band of snow will hit Medicine Hat overnight, with up to 15 centimetres expected to fall by late Thursday.

“With these temperatures that we have, it’s going to probably be more of the fluffy snow rather than the really heavy, wet snow that we sometimes get,” said Kulak. “Certainly, it’s going to be a wintery event though for the next 24 to 36 hours.”

According to Maunder, City staff have been planning for the snowfall by pushing back existing snow banks around Medicine Hat.

After a handful of storms already this winter, he added they’re well equipped for the next few days.

“We can end up with between seven and nine sanding trucks and a couple of plows in there,” said Maunder. “As well, we have four graders of our own, as well we augment with contracted services if we need to.”

Volker Stevin meanwhile will be clearing local highways with some of their 25 trucks in the area, starting with the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 3.

Both the province and Environment Canada are advising drivers to stay off the roads when possible, citing quickly changing road conditions.

Volker Stevin operations manager Dean Jetten said their strategy will depend on what areas need the most help.

“Say for example it hits Brooks, then the Brooks foreman will also be calling the Medicine Hat foreman and letting him know, ‘Hey, this is starting to happen,” said Jetten. “So, there’s lots of communication.”

City plows started Wednesday afternoon on priority routes such as hills and major arteries, while secondary routes like bus stops and school zones will be focused on afterwards.

Maunder said they’ll have crews working throughout the night to make the morning commute as painless as possible.

“We’ll work late into this evening here and then we’ll schedule guys for an early shift, generally about 4:00 in the morning to bring in another crew that will tackle the next day.”

If there are any school closures or bus cancellations on Thursday, school divisions will call parents and post updates on social media.