City Slow to Respond to Snowfall?
Prince George, B.C. – It may only be a few centimetres, but today’s snowfall seems to have caught the City of Prince George off guard.
There have been multiple reports of fender benders around town yet City sanding trucks weren’t loaded up and sent out until 10:00 this morning. Environment Canada predicted our first substantial snowfall yesterday.
So what gives?
“We were ready. We are ready,” says Blake McIntosh, the City’s manager of roads and fleet division. “We have all the equipment outfitted and ready to go but the public still needs to remember that we’re in a transitional season right now. We still have construction going on, we’re actually paving today. So resources were spread out trying to wrap up the shoulder season of construction.”
He insists the City wasn’t caught with its pants down.
“No, it (snow) didn’t catch the City with its pants down. We had trucks available. If you look at our snow and ice control policy, full crew activation occurs when there’s 75 mm or more on priority roads,” says McIntosh.
“And then priority three’s (residential side streets) it’s 120 mm. So a small one to two cm snow event we’re handling it with trucks and fracture salt. We will be salting and sanding the priority two’s that have hills and bus stops as per our normal practices.”
Comments
Really? 2 cm out there, and people want to waste money on snow that will be gone this evening? No wonder the city, and the population is always broke.
It looks like they have at least updated the media releases from last year and years before then. ;-)
C’mon Greg, your blaming the City because people can’t drive to the road conditions. I am glad they aren’t running around wasting resources on this.
Off guard, come on get real. We live in the north, it snows, seems surprising to some. Drivers have to take responsibility for there own actions. This snow fall hardly amounts to anything.
I totally agree. Couldn’t believe the fools who couldn’t clear their cars of snow, lazy and poor driving habits.
probably one of the only times I agree with seamut . if you can’t get around town today without causing an accident even on all-season tires please just stay home .
Seriously Greg Fry?! Did you already have this story made up weeks ago, just waiting to fill in your blanks and post it at the 1st hint of snow?
Come on man, let the drivers of Prince George assume some of the responsibility of driving to winter road conditions- that is to slow down, allow extra time etc, etc, instead of immediately blaming the City that they weren’t out sanding and plowing the 1st snow dusting of the year!
Maybe if some people could take 5 minutes out of their day and sweep their car off, maybe we wouldn’t have so many accidents. Why isn’t the RCMP fining these people?
It’s always someone elses fault isn’t it? How many people having trouble today are still using tires not suited for this weather?
Don’t want to slow down, then let them learn…the hard way.
So long as they don’t take anyone else with them!
PS. It’s not about slowing down, it’s driving for the conditions. Hitting the brakes is not always a wise move. Slowing down going up a hill is not always the best way to make it up that hill.
Streets were horrible! So slippery I couldn’t text, eat breakfast, and put my makeup on driving to work this morning ! Why do I pay taxes ???
Seriously?!?! It has nothing to do with the City having the crews out, it has EVERYTHING to do with the people not being prepared! Put your winter tires on, drive slow c’mon!
nothing new, city has been “caught off guard” every year that I can think of..convenient excuse.
Facebook is showing just how many people in this town need to have their license revoked.
There is a mad scramble to find a tire store today for a lot of people.
I wonder how many here actually drove for weather conditions and how many blamed the city for not being out there as soon as the first snowflake hit.
The city has a guideline that was drawn up and voted on about when it was appropriate to put plies on the road by the definition this snowfall has not met those conditions so people need to drive according to road conditions or better yet stay off the roads all together
Plies, plows, I don’t care. It is in fact “Everyone else’s fault”, the city’s, the other driver, the conditions, never the fool who doesn’t take the time to concentrate on what they are doing. The excuses from a poor driver are endless for any infraction and those are expounded and exaggerated in traffic court to no avail. You know who the poor drivers are at first snowfall.
Yet, on previous article on here, Friday October 14, headlined ” City Ready for First Major Snowfall” they claimed to be ready…
how can you be ready and caught off guard at the same time.
I see no quote from the City in that article. So I am not sure what the City claimed with respect to the state of readiness.
In this article they say they were caught off guard. So, that says it all, they were not ready.
This cracks me up, ““We were ready. We are ready,” says Blake McIntosh, the City’s manager of roads and fleet division.”
They were so ready they had the sanding trucks loaded 2 hours after it started? Reading this guy’s response, it sounds like he’s blaming us for them not being ready.
I knew it was going to snow. You’d think the people paid to deal with the snow would have wanted to know that as well. Let me guess, it’s not his job to read the forecast?
Here is one winter question. At 5th and the Bypass they have been working on the intersection for the last two months. Why is the highway department think that they can get a way without finishing this very busy intersection. It is now time for all of us to get together and send letters to Victoria that we have snow in October and if they the contractor should get these contracts starting in May. How are they going g to finish this intersection , they have not worked on it for over a week. If this was south this would have been done and finished in August. They want the north money to make life a little easier for the south. What can we do.?
Of course this media outlet would pretty much blame the city for a job of clearing wet snow haha. I mean how many km of roads does this city have? Does 250 new expect a sand truck on each of the main routes? Hahaha
Who shoveled their driveway today? If you didn’t why not? Because you know that it would melt.. why can’t the city use the same mentality?
There was not enough snow to warrant plowing today.
What snowfall?? You call that a snowfall…just wait until November.
But I must admit, I did take a cornbroom and sweep off my porch.
Can someone please help me shovel my driveway?!
I’m betting that we will get the best snow removal this year, than we’ve have for years.
Lets wait for the **real** snow fall before we start complaining.
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