The City of Flin Flon’s snow clearing strategy is getting back on track after delays earlier this winter.
Three main factors have affected the City’s existing snow clearing plans this year - first, a harsh winter that has involved more severe snow storms and more lingering, standing snow than most years. Second has been a City removal group that has seen significant turnover from previous years, with several new workers, with the third being the omicron variant, which has caused several City workers to have to stay home and isolate after being exposed or testing positive. At one point, City crews were experiencing what were described as “critical staff shortages”.
“We were short-staffed because of COVID-19. We're just starting this week to get people back, so hopefully we can get going on the snow removal,” said Nicole Hartman, City of Flin Flon chief administrative officer during city council’s Feb. 1 meeting.
“We basically had enough to do garbage pickup last week. Everybody's starting to get better and come back to work. We’re hoping we can get at the snow removal now and we’ll keep the updates coming as we do the removal, where we’re going do it that week.”
“It’s a perfect storm. We’ve got one of the biggest snowfalls that I’ve seen for a long time, we’ve got COVID-19 and it won’t stop snowing,” added Mayor Cal Huntley.
Complaints have come in to City Hall from residents who have not had their street cleared or who could not get to work or to vital services after snowstorms. Others living on sidestreets complained of their own streets being covered with enough snow to make them borderline impassable.
Huntley said the City had raised the priority of snow clearing operations as the winter has worn on.
“We had a real debate around the challenges of snow clearing and we've certainly made it a priority with regards to our works and operations group,” said the mayor.
“I think with the community, in a lot of cases, it won't relieve the frustration because it won't happen immediately, but we sure are getting them to make the best efforts and we appreciate the efforts that they are making. We look forward to maybe no snow for a little while and allowing us some time to catch up.”
Huntley asked for patience for areas that haven’t seen cleaning recently, adding that work would continue throughout the winter.
“It's something that we've reiterated to management and staff, that it's very important to us and for accessibility for people in their homes. We need to get as much as we possibly can done in as short period of time as possible - and it's not magic. It takes time, but the boys will be working very hard,” Huntley said.
