HALIFAX – Several drivers were lefts stranded after their cars fell victim to some of the city’s massive puddles.
Ice-covered and clogged storm drains have caused localized flooding in many areas, with Halifax Regional Police and RCMP closing off a number of streets and highway ramps around Halifax after they were made impassable by the rising water.
Patrick Burgomaster was house-sitting for friends on Sunday when he noticed water rising along the street. He says the nearby storm drain was covered with about a foot of ice.
“I knew it would be total catastrophe if I didn’t get this thing cleared,” he said.
Burgomaster says it took more than three hours of chipping at the ice before he was able to clear the storm drain. Those icy conditions were also challenging for city crews.
“Because of the kind of weather we’ve had, even as we’re exposing the pit, it’s not able to take water necessarily because it has ice inside it,” said Darrin Natolino, the superintendent of Winter Operations for the Halifax Regional Municipality.
“So that means Halifax Water has to come out and help us out by unclogging it.”
According to Natolino, the past three to four weeks have been “incredibly challenging.”
“To the point where we have people that have been part of our snow program for over 20 years, some of them over 25 years, and they’re all making the same comment: they don’t remember ever seeing conditions like this,” he said.
“When we look at a challenge like White Juan, that kind of pales in comparison to this because that was a rapid dump of a bunch of snow. But it was light fluffy snow that you can move around and get rid of. The layer of ice that’s underneath everything out there is definitely not an easy thing to contend with.”
Conditions could still get messier around Halifax, with temperatures expected to drop over the next few days.
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