Drivers warned to stay off streets during post-storm cleanup
Posted Nov 24, 2011 04:58:58 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotia is digging out after a big winter wallop – and police are warning drivers to make sure their cars are off the streets today.
Schools are open across the province and the buses are running after a low-pressure system that brought lots of snow on Wednesday, closing businesses and schools were closed, and causing dozens of accidents.
So far, the Annapolis Valley and Halifax Regional school boards say it’s business as usual, although bus drivers will be using their discretion on side roads that haven’t been plowed.
News 95.7 meterologist Richard Zurawski says the storm arrived and developed exactly as forecasted – and Halifax got the worst of it, with 34 cm recorded at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
“This was quite a storm,” he said. “It started between 8 and 8:30 in the morning in the Halifax region, it came in through the southern shore in the form of rain, but inland, the entire mainland of Nova Scotia got between 25 and 35 cm of snow.”
Halifax Regional Police Staff Sgt. Reid McCoombs tells News 95.7 about 50 cars were towed and 100 tickets handed out to drivers who left their cars on the streets Wednesday afternoon and overnight into Thursday.
He says there’s more of the same in store today.
“Snow removal is still ongoing and still continuing, and even though it’s daylight hours, if vehicles are parked in such a manner that they are inhibiting snow removal, they can be ticketed and or towed,” he said.
The heaviest snowfall happened in the afternoon, causing chaos on the roads.
RCMP Staff Sgt Peter Ferguson tells News 95.7 he doesn’t have hard numbers, but estimates there were around 70 accidents on Wednesday that affected every size and shape of vehicle.
“There were problems over in Cole Harbour with one of the exit ramps going out towards the airpor, one tractor-trailer slipped off there and shortly thereafter another one slipped off,” he said. “Then we sent a couple of police cars up and both of them got stuck. So there was a lot of snow and conditions were terrible.”
Zurawski says the good news is that today’s cleanup will be helped along by better weather today and even better weather on the weekend.
“Everything that we’ve got on the ground should have a very good melt associated with it,” he said. “If you don’t shovel it out of the way, it’ll eventually go.”
The forecast calls for temperatures in the double digits on Saturday and sunshine throughout the weekend.
