It will take the better part of two weeks to clean up City of Nelson streets from Tuesday’s snowstorm.
The city says there was 67 centimeters of snow on the ground by Wednesday morning. That’s nearly two and a half times the largest snow depth for a Jan. 5 in the last eight years.
“This epic snowfall will require more outside resources than we have experienced in recent history,” it said in a news release. With more contractors and the amount of snow to clean up, the storm will likely put a big dent in the corporation’s winter control budget.
As for its plan, the city was closing off various downtown streets to remove snow today (Thursday). Depending on far along they get and how much of a setback another 20 centimeters forecast to fall tonight will pose, it may continue tomorrow (Friday).
With the temperature forecast to get near freezing on Friday, city staff are cleaning out problem catch basins to prevent any flooding.
Nelson plans to continue following its snow removal policy and work down through the list of priority streets and routes, eventually hoping to have things restored to allow garbage and recycling curbside collection the week of Jan. 17.
In the meantime, people are allowed to drop their tagged garbage in a bin across from the airport hangers at 90 Lakeside Drive until Saturday. Recycling can be taken to the RDCK depot at 70 Lakeside Drive or the Grohman Narrows Depot at 1201 Insight Drive.
Even with the unprecedented snowfall, the city still plans to enforce sidewalk clearing, giving out $50 tickets if your part of the walkway isn’t shovelled by 11 a.m.