CALGARY -- City of Calgary road crews kept busy Wednesday morning as a heavy blast of overnight snowfall has made for some difficult driving conditions.
Early Wednesday morning, the snow created trouble spots on hills, intersections and icy bridge decks where vehicles had difficulty coming to a complete stop.
“I had to drive down Crowchild this morning and it was really covered in snow and very difficult, very slow going, even driving my Jeep felt very nerve wracking,” said Scarborough resident, Stephanie Trip.
The conditions are considered a factor in a Tuesday night crash where a vehicle rolled onto its side and landed on top of a road barrier while driving westbound on Memorial Drive, just east of Seventh Street N.E. No one was seriously injured.
Chris McGeachy, spokesperson for the city road department, wants to remind Calgarians to take extra time during their commutes when weather like this occurs and ice becomes a factor on the roads.
“There are going to be some trouble spots out there, particularly hills and bridge decks with those low temperatures, that can really help create or help with the formation of ice,” said McGeachy
According to Calgary Police Service officials, there were 58 crashes reported between 8 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m. Wednesday. Of the crashes, seven involved injuries and 11 were hit-and-runs.
Road crews are focusing their effort to clear Priority 1 routes with higher volumes of cars, such as Crowchild Trail, Glenmore Trail and MacLeod Trail.
Many residential streets are covered in snow so drivers will need to be extra careful coming out of neighbourhoods and onto main roadways.
The city does not anticipate calling a snow route parking ban, but Calgarians are encouraged to pay attention to alerts if conditions do worsen by visiting roadsnotifications.calgary.ca.
Snowfall also means shoveling and for one Lake Bonavista senior, that resulted in chest pains as he was clearing snow.
Emergency services arrived on the scene and stabilized the man and took him away by ambulance.
The fire crew from the Lake Bonavista fire station chose to stay in the area seeking out any seniors they came across shoveling walkways and took over to help so they wouldn’t have to deal with it themselves.
Peter Healy is one of the Lake Bonavista residents to receive assistance from the fire crews and found it to be “brilliant”.
“Go on sit down, have a rest, we'll do this,” said Healy recalling his interaction with the fire crew. “Couldn’t thank them more, they deserve a medal.”
The snow shovelling was all in a fire crew's day's work, said a CFD spokesperson.
"Teamwork is one of our four core values (pride, professionalism and respect being the other three). Our fire crews are incredibly committed to the communities they work in and if there are opportunities to help in a non-emergency capacity ( in addition to the 911 calls), they will never hesitate to lend a hand and make someone’s day better," said Carol Henke, public information officer for the Calgary Fire Department.
With files from Ty Rothermal
