WATCH: Christina Stevens takes a look at the economic impact of a snow storm in Toronto.
TORONTO – The snow has stopped falling after Thursday’s storm but Toronto city crews are still working to clean up the mess. And it’s costing a lot of money: about $4 million.
“The numbers are still to come but we are estimating anywhere between $3.5 to $4 million to look after the storm of that magnitude yesterday,” Hector Moreno, the city’s manager for road operations said during an interview Friday.
That number can be broken down further: $1.5 million was spent on salting, $2 million for plowing and roughly $600,000 for sidewalk clearing.
That being said, the money spent on cleaning up the storm only represents about two to three per cent of the city’s $85-million budget for road clearing.
According to a Winter Operations Fact sheet provided by the city of Toronto, the city uses approximately 10,200 tonnes of salt during one storm. But they used to use more.
“Since 2003 we’ve been very aggressive on salt management. Because it’s been proven that too much is not the right way to do it,” Moreno said. “So we try to use a lot more liquids, a mixture of salt and water in anticipation of a storm.”
Toronto was blanketed with up to 25 centimetres of snow in some places during Thursday’s storm.
Moreno said city workers will be clearing low-lying areas and catch basins of snow on Saturday to protect against flooding should warmer weather cause the snow to melt quickly.
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