Dufferin County revises state of emergency

Watch the video above: Dufferin County revises state of emergency. Mark Carcasole reports. 

TORONTO – Dufferin County, a community northwest of Toronto, revised their state of emergency on Friday.

The declaration was made by Warden Bill Hill on Wednesday Jan. 29 due to “high wind and frigid temperatures” that have resulted in multiple closures of provincial, county and municipal roads.

That declaration was revised Friday afternoon to include all Dufferin County communities except Orangeville and East Garafraxa.

Hill explained the emergency was called to bring in extra resources from neighbouring counties and municipalities.

“People have to understand that this has been going on for over a week. There were over 400 people who were stranded in two arenas in our county last weekend,” he said in an interview Firday. “Road crews that are generally four or six people… they’re tapped out.”

Most of the problems around Dufferin County were created by persistently strong winds rather than a heavy snowfall. The blowing snow quickly created white-out conditions and snowdrifts up to 12 feet high, Hill said.

All buses and taxis were cancelled to Dufferin County schools Friday morning, including the closure of all schools.

But crews are making progress, Hill said.

“Things a have improved over the last 12 hours quite frankly thanks a lot to the hard work of our roads crews and mother nature,” he said. “There are still an awful lot of secondary roads, particularly north and west of Orangeville that are seriously plugged and blocked up and we would caution people to not be on those roads.”

Hill is urging residents to stay home if they don’t have to be anywhere.

Drivers are advised to exercise extreme caution and to stay off closed roads.