Plows ready for winter wallop as Waterloo region's cities declare snow event
CBC
Snow plow drivers are gearing up for long hours on the road Wednesday into Thursday.
Environment Canada has issued a snowfall warning for Waterloo region, Wellington County and the surrounding area calling for anywhere between 15 and 25 centimetres of snow.
Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge have declared snow events. Kitchener and Waterloo's events start at 9 p.m. while Cambridge's start at 12 a.m. Thursday.
The cities are asking residents to not park on the roads for 24 hours starting at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Snow events are called when five centimetres of snow or more is forecasted to fall and the 24 hours could be extended depending on the actual amount of snow that falls and residents are prohibited from parking on the streets.
The cities are preparing to have all of their plows on the streets starting Thursday morning at 2:00 a.m or once the snow accumulation reaches over 5 cm.
Roslyn Lusk, the director of operations, roads and traffic for Kitchener, said the city will be in a full plow event with "all of our available equipment on the road" which includes 32 plows and 18 salters.
"There's going to be that much heavy iron out on the road overnight fighting the storm," Lusk said.
The city will focus on what's called their "priority one" roads to ensure emergency services have access to residential areas. They also focus on areas around bus routes and once those routes are cleared, they'll pay attention to local and residential roads.
Waterloo says it will have 10 heavy equipment trucks available to remove the snow and transport it to their snow dumping location on Lexington Avenue.
Waterloo will focus on its main arterial routes and collector routes including transit stops before heading down residential streets.
Waterloo has outlined its plan on the city website as to when residents can expect a plow down their street and the city warns, "takes six to 24 hours to complete all plow routes after snow or ice has stopped falling."