The city received more than 300 calls through 311 related to the recent extreme cold as infrastructure crews were challenged to keep services running for the six days.
“We firstly want to thank the community for their patience during the recent cold snap,” says Joel Sanchez, director of infrastructure services. “The sustained low temperatures were challenging for machinery, infrastructure and our staff to keep things moving in the timely way residents and businesses have to come expect from the city.”
According to the city, technicians attended more than 100 emergency requests for repairs on city vehicles, including snowplows, garbage trucks and emergency services vehicles. Snowplow teams worked around the clock and in some cases plowed the same arterial roads up to eight times. More than 340 km of roadways were plowed and sanded during the cold spell.
Crews put in more than 400 hours to fix four watermain breaks and electrical teams put in extra hours to implement the provincially mandated grid alert and trigger the city’s emergency plan to prepare for power outages.
The facilities department had more than 60 extreme weather-related emergency requests and more than 155 hours of staff time was put in to keep facilities running.
“I’d like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to all of our staff who worked to keep services and facilities open for the community,” says Sanchez. “The pride taken in pushing through in these conditions to serve the public was very humbling and motivating to see.”
In total, the city says 311 got 340 cold weather related calls during the extreme temperatures.