City was fully prepared for Dec. 29 storm: official

City crews managed to meet all the city's target times for snow removal during the Dec. 29 storm that dumped 35 cm of the white stuff on Greater Sudbury.

And Tony Cecutti, the city's general manager of infrastructure, said the more than 100 workers and 60 pieces of equipment were all ready to go once the storm hit.

"There was an impression that the city wasn't prepared, and that's something I'd like to dispel,” Cecutti said Monday. “We were in really good shape ... Some accumulations just take a little bit longer. I think that's what created the perception that we weren't ready."

As is often the case when the first storm of winter hits, he said the city received many calls from residents wondering when the plow would come clear their street. While the majority of callers were just looking for information, Cecutti said some people were upset the plow wasn't coming sooner.

But the challenge of clearing 3,600 kilometres of road, along with sidewalks, is a large one, he said, particularly when so much snow falls so quickly. He said city crews and contractors performed their tasks well.

"I was very proud of the work they did," Cecutti said. "It's tremendous to watch them. It is a very complex operation. It is a lot of work, and they do their job quietly.

"We have to drive a snow plow from Sudbury to the border of New Mexico -- during the storm, and after it ends. That's 3,600 lane kilometres, you're pushing a plow that distance. And the plows don't go very fast -- 15, 20, 30 km/h. They might get up to 40 on a main road. So it takes a long time."

One problem that caused issues with sidewalks are what's known as “windrows” -- that line of snow the plow leaves behind your driveway when it goes by. In some cases, sidewalk plows were followed by road plows, which filled in the freshly plowed sidewalks.

In other cases, private contractors cleared private driveways, creating windrows on sidewalks, some as high as six feet.

“So we're either messing up a road with the sidewalk plow, or messing up the sidewalk with the road plow," he said. "Certainly in the days following the storm, we had to go back and clean up a lot of sidewalks ... And when our sidewalk plow comes by it creates another windrow in the driveway, which really frustrates people.

"But we had no trouble at all reaching the targeted times. There was significant volumes of snow, so the cleanup work, when you have that big of an event, you do tend to create a lot of banks of snow in some places that require attention after the fact."

Cecutti said 311 has become an important way for city staff to find out what areas have been missed during storms, something that almost always happens during such a complex operation. However, there are a few residents that have unrealistic expectations for snow removal.

"Some people call and say, 'it's been snowing for two hours, where are you?' All I can say is that we had all our resources out attacking the storm,” Cecutti said.

“That sort of accumulation in such a short period of time, it takes some time to deal with it. You're not going to get everywhere in two or four hours. It's going to take a little longer than that."

Greater Sudbury road plowing standards:

• Salting and sanding: Two to four hours after a storm begins
• Continuous plowing of major roads: Begins once five cm has fallen, continues for three to eight hours after storm ends
• Continuous plowing and sanding residential roads: Begins once eight cm has fallen, all roads should be plowed within eight to 24 hours after storm ends 
• Plowing and sanding sidewalks: Sidewalk plows are deployed once eight cm has fallen, should be completed within four to 24 hours after storm ends 
• Clearing bus stops: Cleared the first night after a storm in which eight cm or more of snow has fallen.