ESTEVAN - The City of Estevan’s Public Works crews have shifted to winter operations, and have handled their first adverse weather system of the season.
Freezing rain coated the community on Nov. 13, forcing the closure of highways surrounding the city. The roads in Estevan were slippery, and public works sprang to action.
“We were out very early in the morning at 5:30 with the liquid salt and the sanding trucks,” said Norm Mack, the manager of the public works’ roads and drainage division. “I had received calls early in the middle of the night that it had rained, and got really icy really quick.”
The city didn’t receive enough snow to necessitate removing snow from the roads.
“That Saturday, we had it melted down pretty good with the salt by noon hour,” said Mack.
Mack noted that many employees who were out working on Nov. 13 had never seen icy conditions quite like the ones they encountered, and some of them have been sanding streets for many years.
“They couldn’t even go up the hills in town. They had to back down the hills because they couldn’t make it up the hills,” said Mack.
Speaking at the Nov. 15 meeting of Estevan city council, Councillor Shelly Veroba paid tribute to the efforts of the city’s public works staff members.
“The sand trucks were out bright and early, and today when I went to work, Fourth Street was nice and clean,” she said.
As for other tasks, public works employees have taken down the military tribute banners that were hanging around the community in honour of Remembrance Day, and employees have placed Christmas decorations throughout Estevan.
Their efforts were slowed down for a couple of days due to the winds that approached 100 kilometres per hour on Nov. 16 and 17.
It usually takes a couple of days to install the Christmas decorations, and crews will tweak them once in place.
The snow removal equipment is ready to go for when Estevan gets the first big snow storm of the season, whenever that might be.
“We invested in good equipment as far as sanding trucks a few years ago,” said Mack.
The city will have the same snow removal protocol as previous years, and the priority routes are unchanged.
“Whatever Mother Nature throws at us, we’ll do our best. A lot of our snow removal depends on which way even the wind is from on a storm. That dictates how we do snow removal, is how heavy the wind is, which direction it came from, so there’s a lot of variables in the snow removal.”
Mack believes Estevan probably has the best snow removal program in the province.
“I’ve had several cities and other communities phoning in and interviewing us or asking us what we do and how we do it, just because they hear so many good things from this area.”
The city has received favourable feedback about snow removal, even though the snowfall the last couple of years has been very light.
“When it does come, we’re out there really quick, but one of these years we’re expecting heavy snowfall at some point, and you never know what’s around the corner. We’ll always prepare the blowers. They’re the workhorses that move all the snow. Every nut and bolt is looked at in the summer and fall on those machines to make sure they’re ready to go.”
Even if the city receives a heavy dump in September or October, they’ll be ready to go.
Mack noted public works was also busy in the summer and early fall, and they were involved with some of the capital projects completed in the city in the summer.
