Driving and the snowstorm

Regarding snow removal - everyone likes to whine about the lack of it when the white stuff balls, but my guess is that there are more ‘pressing’ things the city budget is worrying about.  Don’t get me wrong here - I am by no means saying that the city ALWAYS spends their money fairly/wisely, etc - just saying that in a town such as Rupert there might be less of an urgency for snow removal than some other towns.

Example:  Mackenzie

We moved there and couldn’t figure out why the streets were so wide.  MUCH wider than other streets we had seen, but with WAY less population.  Then it snowed.  And snowed.  And snowed.  And snowed.  Slowly the streets were narrowed down to ‘normal’ size from the plows - until it got so high that even the plows couldn’t push it back far enough.  That’s when the monster made appearances all over town (see first pic below)

The plows and the gigantic snowblower were incredibly efficient - ‘main artery roads’ were always cleared before 7am, and almost the entire rest of the town by 8am at the latest.  Sometimes it was slack around holidays, but never for all that long.

That being said, WELL over half of the city budget was snow removal.  So if you all want better snow removal for the handful of times it snows in Rupert (I hope I’m not jinxing the town by saying that haha) then you have to be prepared for the decreased funding for other things that a city needs as a result.  I’m not so sure I’d want that to happen - sure it sucks to try and get around in the snow when it’s not plowed, but I also wouldn’t want to see services cut so that people can get around better. 

My suggestion is to have a 2nd set of rims for your vehicle with winter tires on them - then if it snows and you really need to get somewhere you can just switch them out.  But - don’t even think about the possibility of being invincible because you have ‘winter tires’ - even Blizzaks suck in heavy, wet, slushy snow.  Get yourself some good ice tires (because even if Rupert doesn’t get a lot of snow, we do get ice) and when you have to venture out into the snow be totally prepared for the possiblity of getting stuck. 

Some random photos of the crazy snow in Mackenzie:

Too chicken to park under the carport:
media5.dropshots.com/photos/9584 … 195044.jpg

Out the front door (can’t see that there is a house across the street):
media3.dropshots.com/photos/9584 … 172227.jpg

media3.dropshots.com/photos/9584 … 143943.jpg

And more snow:
media3.dropshots.com/photos/9584 … 144258.jpg

Seems to me that houses in places like that should be built with walking ramps up to the roof. Then you could get a snow blower up there…lol