A recent heavy snowfall means business is booming for private snow removal companies in Lethbridge.
The wind is playing a big factor as snow drifts continue to pile up in parking lots, on streets and sidewalks, making for some repetitive work.
“It’s work that you finish, and then you gotta do it again, and then you gotta do it again, and then gotta do it again,” snow removal crew member Nathan Clark said. “But that’s just the way it goes.”
Wall said his residential crews are busier this week than the commercial crews, all because of the wind.
“A lot of our commercial sites, they either drift and you deal with it or the wind blows it off and there’s no drifts to actually have to deal with,” Wall said. “When houses drift they tend to continually drift.”
“Our residential crews are now on their third or fourth time to the same house to dig the drifts out.”
An upside to all the work? The holidays. Many people aren’t at work this week making the job a little easier.
“Less people and less cars. It also allows for us to spread things out and make decisions depending on not just on how much snow falls but when things are open,” Clark said. “You can sometimes leave things if you’re in a hurry, or if there is some places that have to get done and some places don’t have to get done right away.”
Although there is quite a lot of work to do, Clark said there is still something satisfying about plowing through the snow.
“It can be fun… after you do 12 to 15 hours of it, it becomes a little less fun.”