Recent snowfall didn’t meet criteria for full response: city

There’s a simple reason why city crews weren’t out in full force clearing Saskatoon roads Friday — there just wasn’t enough snow.

Many roads were at least partially snow-covered during the morning commute, including main routes like Circle Drive.

City of Saskatoon director of roadways and operations, Brandon Harris, told 650 CKOM city snow plows were indeed clearing roadways throughout the night and into the morning.

However, in order for there to be a “full response,” at least five centimetres – or two inches – of snow has to fall.

Saskatoon came in just short of that overnight Thursday – receiving around three centimetres, or about an inch.

“When we have those five-plus centimetre snows, we call in all of our contracts. We do a full overtime call-out for all city staff. We get every piece of city equipment rolling,” Harris said.

Harris noted there are two reasons the city does not do a full call out to deal with lower accumulations, below five centimetres.

“One is the impact just isn’t as great – the other is overall cost,” Harris said.

Activating a full response to all events could effectively double the city’s annual snow budget.

Harris said the city continued to work on clearing roads Friday afternoon.