WATCH: Just a day after Greater Victoria was hit by a blast of winter, the area is getting ready for the second round of snow expected Friday. Isabelle Raghem reports.
It was a rare sight in the Capital Region on Thursday, especially for those who moved to the island for its mild winters.
“Did kind of expect a little less, a little less snow here,” says a Colwood resident.
About four centimetres of snow fell in Colwood Wednesday night — a small amount compared to nearby Victoria. Roads in the capital were slammed with as much as 12 cm of snow in just a few hours.
While the snow stopped falling by sunrise, messy roads on the West Shore continued through the morning commute. A red pick up truck completely flipping over in a ditch on Sooke Road in Metchosin and just a few metres away, another car was off the highway.
“We do as much as we can with the resources we have,” says Langford Mayor Stew Young, while addressing the response to the snow. “Am I gonna go out and spend $10-million on [snow removal] trucks because we might have done a little bit better job? No, it doesn’t make sense”
While most of the snow had melted by Thursday morning, there is another snowfall expected Friday.
“We were on all night, we don’t stop,” says Leon Bohmer, the Main Road operations manager. “Whatever Mother Nature throws at us, we’ll do our best on our ends to plow those roads and make them safe.”
On Thursday morning, Main Road Contracting restocked the 150 tonnes of salt used up in the last 12 hours. The trucks tasked with clearing southern Vancouver Island highways are now getting ready for the next blast of winter.
A special weather statement was in effect Thursday. Between 2-10 centimetres may fall in Greater Victoria, east Vancouver Island and inland Vancouver Island on Friday, according to Environment Canada.
Isabelle Raghem
