A mild start to the day, but snow is coming.
With a winter storm warning declared by Environment Canada, student transportation officials for the Lambton-Kent and St Clair Catholic District School Boards have taken the proactive move of cancelling school buses in zone one through seven. Buses in zone 8 will run as normal, but any bus that has to travel through one of the other zones will not be operating.
For Conseil scolaire catholique Providence, Chatham-Kent and Lambton Areas – Zones 1 to 7: Transportation is cancelled today. CSC Providence schools are open.
With the heavy snowfall expected over the next few days, Chatham-Kent’s Public Works department is also making sure the municipality is prepared.
Public Works Director Ryan Brown said his department is monitoring the forecast, which is currently calling for 20-30 cm of snowfall locally between Wednesday and Friday. A winter storm warning has also been issued by Environment Canada.
“It can be challenging when these storms go on for days,” he said. “There are rules around how many hours snow plowers can actually drive for, which is a 24-hour period. So we have to do a lot of scheduling.”
Brown said it’s important to ensure they have enough staff to cover the roads around the clock. He said his team also has to make sure they have enough salt to maintain the roads.
Brown added that the plows will tackle the snow on the main roadways before moving to secondary roads.
“The minimum maintenance standards of Ontario contemplates, not only traffic volumes,… but also the speed of the road. Roads that are 80-90 km/h speeds limits have higher priority,” said Brown “There is a hierarchy of how we plow the roads but we do get to all of them, sometimes it just takes a little time.
“Usually, within 24 hours of the snow ending, we can have everything in pretty good condition.”
To track snowplows within Chatham-Kent, click here.
