No relief to cold in sight
Sam Stewart's face is covered in frost as he clears snow from the sidewalk along Whyte Avenue and 107 Street yesterday. Edmonton's daytime temperature hovered around -28 C with a wind chill that made it feel like -40 C. (David Bloom, Sun Media)
"Winter have you stuck in a rut? You'd better get used to it.
City officials say major arterial roadways have all been plowed following this week's bout of bad weather and the focus is now on clearing bus routes.
There are no plans to clear residential streets - some of which have become increasingly rutted and snow jammed.
Barry Belcourt, the city's director of roadway maintenance, said generally, the snow pack must exceed 10 cm in the driving lanes before that's done. Yesterday, it was at about 5 cm on residential streets.
"It's not going to be a total city-wide plowing," he said of the current effort. "But if we've got a couple of locations adjacent to an open field, and the wind's blown in, we'll go and deal with those one-off locations."
Belcourt said crews may also do the occasional back lane if conditions warrant it.
Because of the sheer ice on the roads, the city has stopped using sand and has been throwing down a sand/rock chip mixture to give motorists more traction, Belcourt said.
He said the product has been put down on arterial roads and will go down on bus routes as they're cleared today. Even more rock chips - which embed into ice - are put down on hills.
DRIVING ON MARBLES
"If you threw chip down on bare pavement, that would be hazardous," Belcourt said. "It would be like driving on marbles. You only throw the chip down when you have ice. What we're doing here is not rocket science."
Windrows - the large piles of snow found in the middle of some streets - are expected to be removed from business areas tonight.
As well, crews will continue to smooth out some of the ruts caused by snow and ice on both arterial and bus routes, Belcourt said.
Officials have said the cost of this clean-up will be in the millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, anyone looking for some relief from the frigid weather is going to require patience.
Daytime highs until Friday are only expected to reach the high -20s, while nighttime lows will be close to -30 C.
Saturday's forecasted high of -19 C will seem balmy by comparison, but Environment Canada meteorologist Dan Kulak said that's still nearly 15 degrees below seasonal norms. The average high this time of year is -5 C.
"When the cold air moves in it tends to stick around for awhile," Kulak said.
He said the temperature could reach the minus single-digits early next week.
ODDBALL
The frigid weather wasn't enough to keep one oddball from heading out for a run in his underwear.
Four police cruisers and an ambulance were called to 50 Street and 93 Avenue shortly after 9 p.m. when the nearly nude sprinter was seen disrupting traffic.
"When the weather is this bad and we get a report of a man outdoors in his underwear, we need to get him inside, even if he doesn't want to be," said a cop, who couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Apparently he really wanted to be outside, he resisted arrest."
The man was later taken to hospital by ambulance."
Kindly taken from:
**As a side note... Sarah and I were driving W. on 149st and our lane just ended because of the snow pile jutting out from the sidewalk.... No warnings or anything... At least give us some warning that it's now a one lane road! Especially right after an intersection!**
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Looking out to the bus station. See our car??!
