Saskatoon council approves snow removal plan for major blizzards
Saskatoon City Council approved a new winter road emergency response plan at Monday’s council meeting.
“When to pull the trigger on when to remove snow, that’s something that we had to go to special council meetings to get that done last time," Ward 4 Coun. Troy Davies told CTV News.
"Whereas now this will all be built in that if we do need to do a full city removal due to the amount of snow we received we do that right away."
Under the plan, extra staffing and contractor resources would be activated to restore mobility after a blizzard with an accumulated snowfall of at least 25 centimetres and reduced mobility to the point that light vehicles cannot travel on city streets.
Administration developed the plan after 30-40 centimetres of snow fell in November 2020, which required day and night city-wide snow grading and removal to restore mobility and safety in the city, according to a news release.
“We have a fine-tuned response plan for snowstorms that we scale up for the handful of times each year when more than five centimetres of snow accumulates,” Goran Saric, director of roadways, fleet and support, said in the release.
“And now, this plan is a more robust, multi-agency strategy for a future extreme event like we saw in November, allowing us to respond faster and more efficiently city-wide.”
The City’s previous extreme blizzard was in 2007 when 36 centimetres of snow fell in one day. Projections using 30 years of historical data for Saskatoon estimate this type of blizzard may occur again in 10 to 14 years.
As the frequency and severity of bad weather is predicted to increase with climate change, the frequency of future extreme snow events may be higher, for example once every seven years.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.