Weyburn dealing with aftermath of April storm

The City of Weyburn is still digging out from the recent snowstorm that smacked southern Saskatchewan.

According to Environment Canada, the city was beset by 60 centimetres (or two feet) of snow during the storm.

“Wednesday and Thursday (were) tough,” said Paige Tenbult, the city’s communications co-ordinator. “There was lots of snow around but our city crews were able to get our priority routes clear, so emergency services like police, fire (and) EMS were able to do their job fairly well.”

Tenbult said businesses in downtown Weyburn were mostly closed on Thursday. However, City Hall was open as were several grocery stores, schools and daycares.

She said the main focus for crews on Friday was clearing downtown.

“The snow is very heavy,” she said. “It’s very wet, so it’s not the easiest snow to remove. So downtown’s our big focus for heading into the weekend.”

According to Tenbult, the city isn’t overly concerned about flooding at the moment, but residents are encouraged to push snow away from their homes to mitigate damage or flooding to their basements.

Local contractors are aiding the city in its efforts to remove snow from downtown.

“That’s pretty standard for us,” Tenbult said. “We don’t have the biggest fleet (of equipment), so we often do reach out to contractors when major events like this happen.”

The contractors are helping clear downtown parking lots.

Tenbult said that although Weyburn had an April snowstorm last year as well, this event is somewhat unprecedented.

“We can only prepare so much for an event like this,” Tenbult said. “We were well-prepared and ready but it’s just a lot of snow. So we’re asking for a lot of patience (and) a lot of grace as we try to clean off the areas as best as we can.”

Tenbult said among the biggest challenges that remain for the city are staff fatigue and equipment limitations.

“Our snowblowers actually can’t really tackle this type of snow just because of how heavy and wet it is,” she said.

“We have three graders. One of them still had snow blades on, but one we did have to switch back to from gravel to our snow blades. So we’ve got two main graders going, we’ve got our loaders and our trucks running but unfortunately, the snowblowers are just not able to handle the heaviness of the snow.”

Tenbult said she’s seen the city come together, but it will be “a lot of work and a lot of long hours” before cleanup is finished.