A view of 100 Street following last week's blast of snow. (Josh Ryan/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

Bad timing

City snow removal stalled by equipment failures

Jan 11, 2022 | 5:08 PM

The City of North Battleford’s crews had nearly 15 cm of snow to deal with following last week’s storm.

Unfortunately, some of the city’s snow removal equipment, suffering mechanical malfunctions, was not up to the task.

Coun. Greg Lightfoot raised the issue at Monday’s council meeting after receiving enquiries from residents wondering when the graders would pass their side-streets, based on the schedules posted.

Director of City Operations Stewart Schafer said the city experienced a double equipment break down. One of the two snow removal graders broke during the extreme cold weather.

“We’re having to get it fixed,” he said. “We are looking at renting a second grader for the time though, to continue and get back on schedule. The amount of snow was quite a bit.”

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As an added challenge, the city’s snow thrower broke down too.

“Apparently, we piled up the chain that runs the gears and the front augers,” Schafer said. “We’re waiting for that part. We hope to have that up and running here, and that should speed us up a bit. So we are going to get back on schedule.”

Lightfoot remarked on the city’s challenges that “it was a heck of a pile of snow,” and a large amount in a short period of time.

He said he knows that crews went out to clear the main thoroughfares, the top priorities, when the city received another big snowfall and had to go back and clear them again, to complicate matters.

“It’s a time consuming process, and with only one grader it’s definitely a bigger job,” Lightfoot said. “So thanks for all you’ve done. I’m sure the public will appreciate getting back on track again.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow