REGINA — Regina city crews are getting ready to deal with the impacts of a blizzard forecast to hit the region.
Daryl Massier, manager of Roadways and Seasonal Operations for the City of Regina, updated reporters Wednesday morning on the current conditions and forecast. He said the city was preparing for a “significant winter weather event” beginning that day.
“Environment Canada has forecasted for Regina and surrounding areas approximately 10 to 20 centimetres of snow with wind gusts reaching 60 kilometres an hour,” Massier said. “We're expecting a significant impact in and around Regina.”
The indication from the city is their crews are ready to respond to the snow and flash-freezing that is expected.
”We have approximately 100 staff and contractors working for the City of Regina right now. We have approximately 70 pieces of equipment that are prepared. Currently we are monitoring the situation and will react as the conditions deteriorate.”
A major concern is the freezing rain. When asked if the city was advising people to stay off the roads, Massier said “I don't think that would be a bad thing.”
“With the amount of rain we're getting and the amount of rain that's forecasted along with the dropping temperatures, it's going to get icy out,” he said, adding “this is a peculiar time when we're getting a rainstorm in December.”
There have been reports already of freezing rain in Regina. Massier said they started to get a few service requests regarding streets.
“It's seeming like, and this is coming from my supervisors whom I just talked to, on the south end of the city, the roads are a little worse than they are on the north end for whatever reason that is. We've dispatched our sanders again out to those areas where we've got calls for icy roads.”
When asked if the combination of freezing rain and snow required more hands on deck, Massier didn’t think so, but said “it's just a shift in mentality.”
“It's a lot more ice control right now than it would be on a regular middle of December day when we'd normally just be getting snow. So it's just more of a shift to trying to cope with the conditions, so the ice, the rain.”
As for what the immediate plan is, Massier said they will have ice control, with their sanders with their salt mixtures out for the foreseeable future running 24 hours a day.
Once it deteriorates and the snow starts to fall, Massier said they will go into what they call a “storm mode”, which will be “some of our larger equipment like graders, sidewalk plows, those types of things will be out patrolling areas, looking at our major roads, safety roads to try to keep traffic flowing with the expected winds that we're going to get.”
“We will also put some of our staff out on some of the outlier areas where our ‘known offenders’ are so to speak, where we get wind and block streets on a regular basis during these types of storms.”
The wind is expected to pick up and cause some challenges. Massier said to address that they will bring in extra help.
“We will assign graders and plows to certain areas that we know where the wind affects the street. Again, we'll be on our storm response, so we'll basically be just trying to keep our materials, our safety places, bus routes, those types of things open as well as the outlying areas.”
For city sidewalks, Massier said they are sanding them for residents and the general population. He said they have 20 sandbox locations where residents are able to pick up sand salt mixture for free, for their use for their home sidewalks or businesses.
At this point there is no announcement yet of a residential plow, but that's criteria for that to happen would be an accumulation of 15 centimetres of snow or more.
Massier is urging drivers to be patient and careful on the roads.
“If the folks out there are driving and they see our equipment out there, I just ask that they be patient and try and stay three and a half to four car lengths behind us, especially in these conditions,” Massier said. “It's icy out there, and I just want everyone to be safe for the holidays.”
