The winter storm Monday that left the city blanketed in a thick layer of snow, congested roads, shut down schools and stalled transit was the most snow that Toronto had seen in more than 10 years. About 26.4 centimetres fell when all was said and done, the most snow the city has seen in one day since Feb. 6, 2008 when there was 30.4 cm.“We’ve certainly had more snow in the last week than we’ve had for the whole winter,” Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips said. “That’s pretty significant.” Residents woke up shovelling out from the storm, amid warnings that the commute to work would be delayed as the city scrambled to plow the roads.The city’s entire snow clearing fleet was deployed, which includes 1,100 pieces of equipment and 1,500 personnel.“In terms of amount of salt used, we’ve used about 10,000 tonnes so far but the operation is ongoing,” City of Toronto spokesperson Eric Holmes wrote in an emailed statement to the Star. “Because the snow arrived so quickly and accumulation was rapid, plows were deployed earlier than normal and salters cycled fewer times than usual.”By 8:40 a.m. Tuesday, the TTC tweeted “full streetcar service is in operation with buses supplementing on several routes. Travel times may be affected by weather and traffic. However, there are no major disruptions on the streetcar network at this time.”The TTC’s Line 3 was shut down Monday evening because of the storm. It has not resumed service, but shuttle buses are servicing the area.Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said there were about 300 crashes across the GTA throughout Monday into early Tuesday morning. But Schmidt said Highway 401 was “looking good” as of early this morning.“The shoulders and highway are looking pretty decent,” Schmidt said in his Periscope stream Tuesday morning. He added that certain ramps are still covered with snow from pl ...
|
