City crews use warmer weather to make snow clearing headway

Since the beginning of November, city of Kelowna crews have responded to 17 snow events. They're now using the warmer temperatures to catch up and hope the public can do their part to help after what has been a challenging start to winter.

Operators have spent a cumulative 100 days in their trucks over the last week, according to Roadways Operations Manager Andrew Schwerdtfeger.

“It’s been an extremely busy winter for roadways,” he told Kelowna10. “Those snow events can be anything from a centimetre of snow when it’s -20C to six inches of snow when it’s 3C out.”

Crews are still out clearing the way, including two trucks that have applied more than 20,000 litres of calcium chloride to help with black ice that accumulated since Wednesday morning.

Schwerdtfeger said the biggest challenge this winter has been during the record-breaking cold snap.

“Those conditions present us with material that packs the road and when we get that ice that bonds with the road, our equipment just can’t scrape it up,” he explained. “The last resort is sanding, and sanding relentlessly. That’s what we’ve been doing up until Christmas Day when it warmed up.”

Many residential streets are currently filled with heavy, slushy, and sloppy snow and crews are trying to move most of it before a return to colder temperatures.

The extensive plowing so far this winter has resulted in snow barriers building up at the end of people’s driveways, and the city is asking everyone to do their part by clearing away those.

“If residents can keep snow on their property that would help immensely,” Schwerdtfeger said. “We’ve got a lot of roads in the hillside routes that are getting very narrow. We’re sending out additional pieces of equipment to clean up cul-de-sacs because waste collection and our plow trucks can’t make it around cul-de-sacs anymore.”

He added residents can continue to help clear the way by finding off-street parking, avoiding driving through puddles where possible and clearing catch basins in front of their homes, so water can drain off the streets.

Priority Three roads (residential and local) including hillside areas are expected to be done by Thursday. Once the next snowfall begins, the focus will shift back to Priority One roads.

Crews have serviced 43,558 km of roads so far.

Since Dec. 24, 180 truckloads of sand and 35 truckloads of salt have been applied to Kelowna roads.

The Snow Event Advisory implemented on December 20 remains in place as Kelowna is expected to receive more snowfall in the coming days. All residents are asked to move cars off the street wherever possible, especially those living on designated snow routes.

More information about snow removal and priority routes can be found online.