Even thought spring officially started on March 20, last Thursday, March 21, saw the Westlock area get hit with the heaviest snowfall it’s seen this winter.
In all, close to 40 centimetres of snow fell that day, rendering many roads nearly impassible.
The snow was so bad it caused the Pembina Hills school division to shut its schools on Friday, something that very rarely happens.
“I’ve been in the division for a number of years, in excess of 20, and I don’t recall it specifically,” said PHRD assistant Supt. Wendy Scinski when asked if the buses and schools had ever not been operating on the same day.
In recent years, she said the division had made it very clear the schools would be open even if the buses were not running.
However, considering how much snow fell last Thursday, it made sense to close the schools.
Scinski explained the decision including looking at the weather forecast for Friday, but more importantly realizing it would take the area a while to dig itself out.
“Taking a look forward, whether the weather patterns changed or not, the ability to clear all of the roads is challenging,” she said. “Given the amount of snow, some of those side roads … were not likely to be cleared.”
Notice about Friday’s closure was given to parents and students by the bus drivers, the schools themselves and posted on the division website.
Although the schools were closed and the buses were not running, Scinski said the schools that normally would have been open — some operate on modified schedules and were not open Friday normally — had staff members present for any students who either walked to school or were driven by parents.
On Thursday as the snow was falling and roads got steadily worse, Carillion Canada, the company that maintains the highways, pulled its plows off the road in the Westlock and Barrhead areas for a few hours.
“Visibility became too bad,” said Alberta Transportation’s Brandon Sandford.
The plows were taken off the road at around noon when conditions became too dangerous, he said, adding the snow the plows kicked up as they drove along also caused visibility problems for other drivers.
In town, public works crews started clearing the streets even before the final snowflake had fallen, said mayor Bruce Lennon on Saturday.
He said he had spoken with public works director Don Hamilton, who said crews worked through the night from Thursday into Friday morning, and would continue clearing the roads through the weekend.
“They’re basically pulling out all the stops and proceeding as best they can,” Lennon said.
The roads were cleared following a set priority, he added. Roads around the hospital and the fire hall were plowed first, with other secondary routes getting cleared next.
Residential streets started being cleared over the weekend, with an estimated completion date of March 26-27.
However, Lennon said the snow also creates another problem as spring kicks in — where is the melted snow going to go?
“Once things start melting, there has to be the ability for this water to get into our surface water system,” he said.
“Otherwise, you start getting flooding.”
To prevent that potential flooding, he said crews are also clearing and thawing catch basins as they go, as well as trucking away the snow so it doesn’t overload the sewer system.
Out in the county, reeve Charles Navratil said his crews were close to finished clearing the roads on Saturday.
He said he had spoken with the public works department earlier in the day, and was told most roads were open in at least one direction, and crews were heading out to start opening both directions and tidying things up.
The snowfall was a bit of an annoyance, Navratil added, while admitting there is nothing to stop it.
“This was just a real freak storm,” he said.
He explained public works had been out clearing the roads after the last snowfall, putting the finishing touches on some roads where the wind had blown snowdrifts on to what had been cleared roads.
“By the time they got them through so people could get up and down them, it started snowing (again) and you get 40 centimetres of snow,” Navratil said.
Despite the bad luck of clearing the roads right before a fresh dump, Navratil said public works never stopped working, and for that he gave them kudos.
“They put in all the hours they could possibly put in,” he said. “I think we did a decent job, but it was some kind of a storm.”
