Despite unpredictable weather patterns including a huge dump of snow recently, Castlegar city crews have kept the streets mostly clear.
"I can tell you - it's unbelievable the amount of work they've done in a short amount of time," said Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff. "I have to give kudos to our crew out there. They're just pounding away hour after hour. We haven't received that many complaints. Just a few about when we would get there to get things done. I tell you these guys need a huge pat on the back. They kept it up over that week we got that huge snowfall, where it was just night after night. I think people need to be happy with what took place in the community."
Chernoff said crews worked at full capacity during the big snow fall on Dec. 19.
"We had every piece of equipment that was available, and every person that was available (working)," he said. "We maxed out the hours. They did a great job under the watchful eye of Garry (Sauer, assistant director) and Chris (Barlow, director of Transportation and Civic Works). It's a lot of work. People call in and say, 'hey, you haven't got to me yet.' 'While, we'll get to you as soon as we can.' If people follow the priority map they'll know we're following it very carefully."
The hospital and schools and main access roads are the top priorities, says Chernoff.
The mayor added that people need to be patient with Emcon Services which does the plowing around the city.
"People measure how they get to the streets of Castlegar with what Emcon does," he said. "That's not really fair. The amount they have to cover and we have to cover in the community is (not really comparable). It's not really a fair measure. When you look at it, they have a huge area to cover and that gets difficult with that amount of snow."