Snow removal has been going full throttle in Red Deer after the weekend’s snowstorm.
City crews, and hired contract equipment, were still on the job on Monday after strong winds blew about 15 cm of snow around Red Deer to drift and make driving a challenge.
“Our Priority 1s and 2s are in good shape,” said Greg Sikora, the city’s Public Works Department manager, about the city’s arterial roads with hills, bridges and high collision intersections and other arterial thoroughfares.
He said some of the roads “may not look pretty,” but the main thing is to get everything accessible and open, and to continue with a plan to clear Priority 3 roads — collector roads on bus routes, in the downtown core and residential streets adjacent to schools.
Crews are also working on local residential roads and backlanes that have drifted in.
“We’re just trying to keep one step ahead of the garbage trucks.”
The shift schedule will then be split with roving crews returning to tidy up major roads.
Sikora reminds residents to watch for no-parking signs so work on Priority 3 roads can proceed as quickly as possible.
“We started off in the downtown but there seems to be an abundance of people who are not obeying the no-parking signs.”
“We appreciate the public’s assistance in helping our guys to get the job done.”
Highways in the Red Deer area were also in better shape on Monday.
RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb said even though there were collisions and vehicles in ditches along Hwy 2 over the weekend, it wasn’t as bad as other parts of Alberta.
Hwy 1, between Strathmore and Medicine Hat, just reopened at 2 p.m. on Monday after it was closed Saturday following a fatal collision involving a Greyhound bus, three semi-trailers and six other vehicles. A passenger in one of the other vehicles died.
Michelle Pelly was on that bus.
Pelly, who left Red Deer to catch the bus that left Calgary, called the collision “the most horrific thing that has ever happened to me in all of my 43 years.”
“A bumper flew through my window and if I hadn’t seen it with my peripheral vision, who knows what condition I’d be in because I had to dive across the aisle into the next seat,” Pelly said on Monday from a motel room in Strathmore. The room was paid for by Greyhound.
Pelly was sitting in the back of the bus. Up front, the bus driver was pinned under the steering wheel after the bus and two-trailer semi first collided. Luckily, the driver and 16 passengers escaped with scrapes and bruises.
“None of us slept Saturday night, we were so traumatized and shocked.”
By Monday, passengers were anxious to leave Strathmore and felt abandoned by Greyhound, without services to help them deal with their stress or basics like deodorant, Pelly said.
“Nobody has any clothes. All we have are our carry-ons. A couple of us put our wallets in our bags that went under the bus for safety. We have no idea where our bags are.”
Greyhound spokesperson Timothy Stokes said the bus company was working to reunite passengers with their belongings and planned to transport them when it was safe.
Greyhound also has been paying for passengers’ meals and provided some with a stipend, he said.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com