Streets at standstill after snowstorm pounds Saskatoon

Police and ambulance crews were responding to numerous calls, including this one near Credit Union Centre, during a heavy snowstorm in Saskatoon on March 6, 2012.

Cars are in the ditch, flights are delayed, and officials are pleading with drivers to go slowly or stay home altogether after a snowstorm walloped Saskatchewan overnight through Tuesday morning.

RCMP say numerous vehicles are in ditches on Highways 11 and 12 north of Saskatoon. The Saskatchewan government’s Highways Hotline says travel is not recommended on any highway radiating out of the city, nor on most highways southwest of Saskatoon towards the Alberta border, due to heavy, drifting and swirling snow along with zero visibility.

Saskatoon police say several vehicles are in ditches near Warman Road and Circle Drive, including at least two semi-trailers.

“Anybody who was hoping for an early golf season has got to put those plans on hold,” said Pat Hyde, manager of the City of Saskatoon’s public works branch. “March has come in like a lion so we hope it goes out like a lamb.”

Since snow began to fall at about 8 p.m. Monday, Saskatoon had accumulated somewhere between 13 and 18 centimetres of snow by 11 a.m., says Natalie Hasell, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada. Saskatoon received the brunt of a disturbance high in the atmosphere, she said. She expected it to taper off in the city Tuesday afternoon, as it heads to the Humboldt and Wynyard areas to dump more snow.

Its effects on the city will be longer lived.

SIAST announced just before noon it was shutting its Kelsey campus and all other city locations, including administrative offices, for the rest of the day and evening.

City bus service hobbled along as most routes saw buses running between 30 minutes and an hour behind schedule, said Saskatoon Transit manager Mitch Riabko at a city hall news conference.

At Saskatoon public schools, afternoon kindergarten classes and respective busses are cancelled.

“The only part of the city where we have had to reduce service is the outlying area, Silverspring, just because of the difficulties moving around,” Riabko said. There, buses will run once an hour instead of every 30 minutes.

Bus service to the Tim Hortons Brier at Credit Union Centre will also likely be reduced Tuesday, Riabko said. Also, Access Transit is calling customers and cancelling all non-essential trips for reasons other than medical, education and work, he said.

No bus routes have been cancelled yet, he said.

“Where we can’t move along roads and we’re blocked, we’ll have to start shutting down those. It all depends on availability of staff and equipment. Right now we’ve got everything we can out there.”

The city’s environmental services branch also cancelled garbage collection Tuesday, telling residents of College Park East, Confederation Park, Lakeridge, Lakeview and Rosewood to leave their rollout carts out until garbage trucks can empty them.

Paramedics were called to a rollover Tuesday around 6:30 a.m. about 500 metres north of the Martensville dump access route, according to MD Ambulance spokesperson Troy Davies. Two patients who were travelling in the southbound vehicle were treated on the scene for minor injuries, Davies said.

Paramedics were avoiding Circle Drive Bridge entirely, Davies said, as traffic was at a standstill Tuesday morning.

Saskatoon police was urging drivers to reduce speed, allow more stopping and following distance, and to give themselves extra time to get to their destinations.

At Diefenbaker International Airport, many flights left at least an hour later than scheduled, and numerous others were listed as delayed. At least one flight to Calgary was cancelled, and four flights coming from other Prairie cities were also cancelled.

RCMP reported collisions and cars in the ditch near Milestone, on Highway 7 in the Kindersley area, near Whitewood, Yorkton and Southey.

Snow in southeastern Saskatchewan Tuesday was caused by a different weathermaker than the Saskatoon storm, says Hasell.

Working to clear city streets have been 12 graders, eight tandem sanders, four one-tonne sanders, seven high-speed plows, three underslung plows, two loaders and five sidewalk plows, along with six private contractors driving graders. The city has also called in neighbourhood contractors to clear snow in areas under development like Stonebridge, Hampton Village, Evergreen, Rosewood, and parts of Willowgrove.

“We’re well-geared up and prepared for the snow,” said Hyde. “We weren’t caught by surprise by any means.”

The city pulled its high-speed plows off Circle Drive Tuesday morning because they were creating visibility problems for other drivers.

Workers will be clearing Priority One streets until the snow stops, Hyde says. Those include freeways and their access roads, roads to hospitals, ambulance posts and fire halls, and major roads like Eighth Street and 22nd Street West. The city’s goal is to begin cleaning priority two roads within 12 hours after the snow stops, but the reality will depend on how much snow has accumulated, Hyde said.

No part of the city seems to be hit harder than another, Hyde said.

“We don’t control the weather — we just battle it as it comes up,” he said. “These folks, they’re trained, they’re geared up. It’s what they do, and it’s not a problem. We just roll with the punches, so to speak.”