Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Issue 34
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
www.estevanmercury.ca
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
Significant snowfall ushers in cold weather and the beginning of winter in Estevan By William Acri wacriestevanmercury.ca
For last while, Estevan area residents were enjoying the rather unseasonal weather that stayed in the area for late November and much of December, but now winter is here and everyone will enjoy a white Christmas. The Energy City received a few inches of snow on Wednesday, layering the roads, parking lots and the rest of the city with a blanket of snow. “We were out early this morning and there wasn’t a significant snowfall, I believe, fortunately the streets were clear and did have compacted snow underneath the new snow,” said Norm Mack, who is the roads and drainage manager for the City of Estevan. “I estimate that about 10 centimetres of snow fell and right now and throughout the day, we will be looking at just tidying up the streets for the holiday season,” he added. Private contractors have worked with the city in the past to keep the city clear of snow for safe driving conditions. “We will be first focusing on priority 1 roads and some of it we will be hauling away because some of that snow can turn to ice and cause bigger problems.
One of the city’s many snowploughs finishes clearing snow in front of the Estevan Leisure Centre on Thursday morning. We plan on very limited overtime today; priority 2 residential and priority 3 will be saved for later,” said Mack. “We will see how the roads pack but we will be sending out sand trucks to be dealing with the ice,” he added. The people who keep
the roads in Estevan clear make a great commitment to the public, he said. “We had our first crews out at 3 a.m and we will be seeing the use of sand throughout these cold icy days,” said Mack. “It wasn’t anything major for us at all; we are not gong to spend huge money on this at all. We
are just going to pay regular hours and avoid overtime.” With temperatures back down where they normally are for this time of year, water pipes and equipment can be susceptible to damage from the very cold temperatures. “The temperatures today have been very cold but
we have not had any problems such as bursting pipes or anything like that,” said Mack. “The newer equipment works well in these colder conditions; we made the right choice when we purchased some new equipment to deal with the winter snowfall.” The City of Estevan is
very well equipped to deal with snow removal this year while also saving money. “We had limited crews out today and all together we had about six crews that were clearing snow today. In a major snow event we work with the city and private contractors to clear the snow,” said Mack.
Fire department continues to see motorists driving through its parking lot By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service continues to see people using the parking lot of its new building as a thoroughfare. Chief Dale Feser, in an interview with the Mercury, said that when the fire hall first opened, they saw a lot of people using the parking lot as a connector for 13th Avenue and Souris Avenue North. He suspects that part of the problem is that people view the parking lot as an extension of Ninth Street. But it’s not, he said. “We asked the citizens and motorists of Estevan to please respect the signage of the no-thru traffic on the north side of the fire station,” said Feser. “You are allowed to use that access if you’re coming to the fire station, but it’s not a drive-thru.” Another issue, he said, is that all of the apparatus exits and enters the fire station out of the north side of the building. It becomes a huge concern for the department. “Somebody may be driving through
and a fire truck is going to be responding to a call, and subsequently get into an accident right on our own property,” said Feser. “We just again ask everybody to respect the boundaries of our new fire station, and stay off the north side.” It can also slow down a firefighter responding to a call if someone is driving through the fire hall’s parking lot who shouldn’t be there. “Firefighter parking for the staff here is on the north side, so when guys are coming in to respond to a call, they’re parking on the very far north perimeter, and then coming into the fire station, getting dressed, hopping on the trucks and then responding out of that location as well,” said Feser. “It’s a very busy little area when we do have an emergency call.” Most people are now aware that the fire department is in its new home, he said, and so they know they can’t drive through the parking lot. The fire department also posted a request to the public on social media, asking people to stop driving through the parking lot. Feser said he didn’t expect it would be
a problem when the fire department moved to the property, but after sharing the concerns online, Murray GM employees told him they would see people treating the parking lot as an extension of Ninth Street. Feser said he has also seen people park in the fire department’s parking lot to access neighbouring businesses. “We’ve taken some measures by putting up the barricades and no parking signs to again educate,” said Feser. “If it does become a persistent issue, we could very likely have the Estevan Police Service come over and just sit on the property, and see if they can catch a few people.” He estimates it’s down to five or six motorists a day who are cutting through the parking lot each day. Feser also once again asked motorists to yield the right of way to fire trucks as they’re responding, particularly for their 13th Avenue access. Signage or lighting might need to be added to alert the public when the fire department is responding to a call. “That way, motorists can be alerted early that the fire trucks are about to come
out,” said Feser. The new fire hall has surpassed expectations, he said, but the department still has some work to do. The front area was used for the toy store for the Community Hamper Association’s Angel Tree program last week, while the back training room was an area where people could pick up pyjamas through the Estevan Kinettes Club’s pyjama drive. These are the sorts of initiatives the fire department couldn’t do at the old Third Street location. “We were taking a look at over 300 people coming in and out in the last two days here,” said Feser. “That doesn’t include the volunteers from the associations who have been helping non-stop here for the last two days. We’ve seen a lot of traffic.” The fire department has been active as well since moving into the building, with about five calls per week. They have also made a lot of public appearances to support the Angel Tree and the Estevan Salvation Army’s kettle campaign.
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