Halifax residents digging out after being buried by winter’s biggest blizzard

It was a day of cleaning up in Halifax after the biggest snowfall the region has seen this winter.

According to the municipality, most areas of the region received between 20 and 35 centimetres of snow in the blizzard, which began Monday afternoon and lasted until Tuesday morning.

It was enough to keep schools, including Dalhousie University’s city campuses, closed on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Blizzard dumps fresh snow on Maritimes, moves toward Newfoundland

CFB Halifax and HMC Dockyard was shut down for the day, while municipal offices, libraries and some businesses opted to delay opening until the afternoon.

“Having some cancellations and office shutdowns definitely helped keeping some traffic away from us, made it more efficient for operators,” said Trevor Harvie, acting superintendent of the municipality’s winter operations.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Having some cancellations and office shutdowns definitely helped keeping some traffic away from us, made it more efficient for operators," said Trevor Harvie, acting superintendent of the municipality's winter operations.

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Harvie said the blizzard was a challenge for crews because strong winds blew snow back on the roads after they had gone through them.

However, he said it was still a very successful operation.

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“It went non-stop, but three hours after the snow stopped we got a lot of the streets already to bare asphalt, still working on the others. Pretty good success so far,” he said.

At the height of the storm, the municipality had 250 pieces of equipment out on the roads and sidewalks.

Snow-clearing efforts are far from over, and will continuing into Tuesday evening.

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“Rest of the day, here we’re going to be continuing on our residential streets getting those all widened back, getting them pushed back into the curb getting us that extra space,” Harvie said.

“Going to start removing snow tonight for accessible parking spaces, our bus stops, start paying attention to details on our sidewalk programs.”

Feedback during this storm cleanup has been mostly positive, although Harvie said the municipality has received a couple complaints.

“They seem to be getting more on top of things faster,” said Kim Snider, as she shoveled a sidewalk with her partner.

The two shovel snow for seniors during the winter months and have noticed a vast improvement in the municipality’s response this winter.

“It’s better than last year but there could still be some improvement,” she said. “There’s still about three or more feet away from the curb. They should cut closer to the curb.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's better than last year but there could still be some improvement," she said. "There's still about three or more feet away from the curb. They should cut closer to the curb."

Pedestrians appeared to be understanding as well.

“Some of (the sidewalks) are fine, some of them are not fine, which is to be expected. It’s a huge snow storm,” said Kate Day after she maneuvered down a section of Agricola Street that had not yet been cleared of snow.

Crews will be back out Tuesday evening in their snowclearing efforts. To help them, the municipality will be enforcing its overnight parking ban. Any vehicles parked on municipal streets between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. could be ticketed or towed away.

WATCH: You didn’t have to travel far in Halifax to see private snow clearing contractors darting from job to job Tuesday. Global’s Dave Squires went on a ride along with one and has this story.

1:26 Snow clearing contractors kept busy after Nova Scotia storm