Saint John 'calling everybody' to help with state of emergency

"We're calling everybody that we can find — in terms of contractors — for hauling equipment as well as removal equipment," Tim O'Reilly, manager of the city's pedestrian and traffic services, said during a media update.

​O'Reilly could not estimate how much the operation will cost.

"At this time, we’re managing our resources fiscally, but the important thing at this time is to get the job done, and that’s what we’re doing," working 16-hour shifts around the clock to remove snow on all streets south of Union Street during seven-day parking ban declared on Monday, he said.

​City staff will update council on the total cost of the operation within a month or two, said O'Reilly, noting the state of emergency declaration allows the municipality to hold contractors to a "fair market rate" — about $50 to $70 an hour for a hauling truck, and up to $200 an hour for larger equipment.

Meanwhile, crews are focusing on the task at hand and have made "significant" progress in the past couple of days, said Fire Chief Kevin Clifford, the head of Saint John's Emergency Measures Organization. He had recommended the state of emergency because some streets had become inaccessible to emergency vehicles.

All streets are now accessible, "so we don’t have the nervousness we had," he said.

But the only area that has been reopened to parking so far is the top of King Street, between Charlotte and Germain, and some streets are still "iffy."

"There [are] still streets that are very narrow, very narrow, but … they’re in better condition than they were yesterday, said Clifford.

We want to be really aggressive in this … If we only do half a job, it’s only going to take one snowfall to put us back where we are.- Kevin Clifford, head of Saint John EMO

"What we want to do is we want to be really aggressive in this and we want to peel this snow off the sidewalks and we want to clear as much as we can so that we can take this opportunity to put ourselves in a very safe condition as we go through the rest of the winter," he said.

"If we only do half a job, it’s only going to take one snowfall to put us back where we are."

Another 25 cm of snow is expected to fall by Thursday night, but Clifford believes crews will manage to "stay ahead of it."

They only have until Monday, when the official state of emergency declaration expires, said Clifford. After that, he will have to provide a progress report to council. "And then we will have to reconsider," he said.