NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT Neal Mews clears a path from his side yard to the street on the Southeast Hill on Monday, Sept. 30, 2019 following a dump of heavy, wet snow over the weekend.
Medicine Hat fared better than areas of southwest Alberta or northern Montana as a late September blizzard brought heavy, wet and blowing snow into the region.
Most rural schools were closed in southeastern Alberta and highway traffic snarled, but though many Hatters were forced to heave up to a foot of heavy, wet snow off cars and sidewalks, Monday morning’s commute was mostly just wet.
That is in contrast to southwest portions of the province and Lethbridge, where city facilities were closed, even a city council meeting was cancelled and crews cleared broken trees and cleared streets well into Monday.
Though local officials are warning about freezing over night, and potentially slick road conditions, warmer temperatures expected by mid-week a should clear away the accumulation.
Municipal Works operations superintendent Jeremy Petryshyn told the News that the division was prepared for the storm, and will resume normal autumn operations soon.
“We began converting some of our equipment last week,” he said of fitting trucks with plows and preparing graders.
“We monitored the weather and jumped in to action.”
Related:City schools elect to stay open after Sunday’s storm
A small crew worked through the night Sunday before a full complement was brought on at 4 a.m. Monday morning.
They plowed and bladed roadways, several times in some cases and particularly on boundary roads on the city limits where high winds blew snow back onto cleared roads.
Petryshyn said the north end of the city seems to have seen the most snow. Crews will likely not be able to get to lower priority side streets in time before expected warmer weather melts the accumulation in place.
To this point there have been few problems reported with clogged or frozen storm sewer drains.
“The ground is still warm enough where we’re not experiencing any freezing or other problems,” he said. “The odd time there is a (clog), it’s usually leaves, and we get after that pretty quick.”
Petryshyn expects crews to revert to street sweeping and leaf cleanup in most areas by the end of the week. That work traditionally continues through most of October and only ends with snow sits in.
