Snowy Update

Well… what can I say. We got a lot of snow. Record breaking snow. I have heard of some area that received over 100cm - which is one meter - of snow in 24 hours. It is crazy, the province declared a state of emergency - which I believe we are still in. Dalhousie was closed on Thursday and Friday and I now see that it will be closed tomorrow (Monday). This isn’t as big of a deal because this is our spring break, but it does mean that I don’t have to work tomorrow. *insert goofy dance here*.

When I ventured up to Shirreff Hall this morning for brunch I noticed that maybe 35% of the sidewalks between here and there were cleared. Which gives you a rough idea of the number of people who have snow blowers around here. However, I took the campus back and it was much better. Dal’s team of Bobcats and front-end loaders have been busy moving the snow around clearing paths and creating gigantic snow mounds.

And today it is snowing again. 20+ cm is what I have heard we are getting, but one never knows for sure until it’s over. On Thursday when it was actually snowing at its worst, I was skeptical about whether things would be normal enough next week. I had people tell me that it would be cleaned up by the weekend. Now, I do realize that the city and province are working very hard to get things cleaned up, but it is a huge task. It’s not a matter of running some plows around. People are walking in the streets because the sidewalks are up to their waist. Cars are crawling around on barely single lane roads. There was a curfew for cars to be off the road on Friday night at 11pm and last night there was a total curfew at 10pm. They are saying that there likely won’t be a curfew tonight, but as it is the downtown area is shut down until midnight or so tonight. That doesn’t sound like cleaned up to me. Yes they are doing it, but it takes time. And the snow we are getting now doesn’t help anyone. I was supposed to go home for some of this week, but as it is, I don’t know whether that will be possible. OK -yes it is possible. But I don’t know whether I want to risk it. All told it is some kind of crazy. I took some photos the morning after the storm and there are a couple up on Urban PHP.