Municipal works crews are out sanding and plowing on Monday, Nov. 9. (CHAT News Photo/Bob Schneider)

By Chris Brown

Around the clock

Municipal works sanding, plowing, getting ready for snow removal

Nov 9, 2020 | 12:56 PM

Since early Sunday morning crews have been working around the clock to keep Medicine Hat roads clear and they’ll be doing so for a while longer.

“We were out all day yesterday from 5:30 in the morning until midnight last night,” says Jeremy Petryshyn, manager of municipal works. “This morning we started again at 4 a.m and we’re focused on our arterial priority one routes we’re doing a lot of plowing on there and sanding of our main areas. Tonight at midnight we’re actually going to shift a crew to start at midnight and we’re going to start doing snow removal.”

It’s an all hands on deck situation for the crews. Petryshyn says those who started at 4 a.m. will do a maximum 12-hour shift and then be back at it when Monday turns to Tuesday.

Sunday’s efforts focused mainly on keeping hills and boundary roads cleared, which were hindered by the swirling winds that forced crews to keep circling back to them on a rotation.

The next challenge is where to put the snow. Petryshyn says the plowed snow will be loaded into trucks and then haul it to the city’s snow dump sites near the airport and along Rotary Centennial Way by the Family Leisure Centre.

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Crews will be working on the city’s Category 1 and 2 routes – for “quite some time,” starting around the hospital and then moving to downtown. Petryshyn says there’s no timeline for Category 3 routes.

“The problem with the threes is there’s no place to put the snow obviously. Going into a local area you can’t just plow it because there’s not that storage area to put the snow.”

An estimated 30.5 centimetres fell, which Petryshyn says is the most he’s seen in his 10 years in charge of municipal works. On top of that, he says, the wind created drifts up to three feet high in some spots.

Hatters can help city crews by not shovelling their driveways and sidewalks into the road. He says that’s actually against the city’s bylaw and that snow should be piled on your own property.

Hatters can also help by giving crews space.

“Around our equipment, our guys are out there lowing and sanding so please give them as much room as possible so they can do their job quickly and efficiently and it’s safe for everyone including the public,” Petryshyn says.