Snow Removal Operations - St. John's, NL

[38Highbury]

impressive, but these bastard things going all night - and reverse bleepers...can't be much fun sleeping there.

[Chuck2k6]

@38Highbury -- I usually sleep through it, unless I'm already awake when they start. In that case I usually go out with a shovel and clean up the mess they leave behind.

[bloodorange20]

What gets me is the street cleaner! In the wee hours of the morning that thing comes strolling down the road, freaks me right out.

[thekiwicanuck]

Man I miss snow!

And 6 hours of daylight!

And Canada in general!

Funniest thing ever happened last time I was

in BC. I saw a plow coming for me around the corner and dashed across the street to avoid it, forgetting that Canadians drive on the right side of the road. You shoulda seen the look on the drivers face as I got blasted with snow... D'oh!

[PrayerCoach]

Wyhat's the name of this street, is it like a dead end street?

[KOOLDAVE1953]

Compliments to your Public Works crew...our boys here in Pittsfield, Mass. could learn a thing or two from them.

[alyr315]

Check how they do it in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec city. It's really good how it'd done. I'm from Ottawa and live in Toronto and when I see what they do here, I laugh.

[CSIS25]

hey you should try to get some video of it i would love to see it

[toolmanward]

i haul snow in bathurst nb , we use dump trailers ,much better i find,we can take a bigger load,move alot of snow with 7 trailers,and a blower,but we dont have a guy in front of us,dont really see a need for him lol,poor bastard must get cold

[Chuck2k6]

I agree on the efficiency of the trailers, however the city doesn't have any. They're not efficient in most of the city because of the narrow, windy, and often steep roads.

[mxzx800r]

Tandems are a much better way of hauling snow, but both work. Here they always have a guy in front guiding trucks and making sure no kids or other objects are in the snowbanks......its a safety thing.....a kid had a fort in a snowbank out west, sadly you dont need to hear the rest of the story.

[uzebdrumz]

That's pretty hardcore snow porn. Keep some of your snow, we're gonna need it in 2010 in Vancouver - the warmest winter olympic city in history.

[logger260]

sure dont take long to fill those dump trucks up. wouldnt want to be the driver of those trucks once the boxes start to plug up though with snow!

[Chuck2k6]

When they're not full of snow they're full of salt/sand, and have a blade or two on them. Heh.

[WesBNSF]

I'm in Anchorage, Alaska. Although you haul it away the same way with trucks and snow blower, you don't clean the streets the same. Using graders is more effective. It takes two, sometimes 3, but it's faster, and you have one simple line in the middle of the street instead of huge piles like you see here. Those streets would've been cleared in no time with graders. The guy standing there is doing nothing, up here he would've already been ran over by a grader.

[Chuck2k6]

Graders cannot be used in St. John's because they cannot navigate the short, narrow streets of downtown. They used to use them, but it took forever because sometimes it would take one of them two or three tries to make one turn onto another street. Also, are your telephone poles on the curb, or back from the street?

[WesBNSF]

Yeah I guess you have a point. It just looks so messy and a lot more compicated than it should be. Telephone poles are back from the street.

[Chuck2k6]

In newer parts of the city (which are designed better than downtown) they pretty much either drop a wing blade onto the sidewalks and push it back or run a blower down the sidewalk. Downtown (where this video is taken) is much more tricky.

[Hezco1]

Nice peice of work. I like it.

[aaaiiieee]

Hey,crackedglassheart I agree with you. Pick up a shovel for the the shit coming out of your face asshole. You sound jaded. You must have a crappy job.

[Chuck2k6]

Cracked, you're...cracked, alright.

If you want to try and make an actual point instead of just swearing and name-calling, then go right ahead. If not, you really don't make yourself out to be as mature as even a 10-year-old, let alone a 28-year-old.

[crackedglassheart]

This is funny right, look at this guy walking backwards. Getting paid to stand around and watching snow flying in the back of the truck! Give me a rock I throws it at em! Fucking lazy cunt! pick up a shouvel and work ya bastard!

[TeeKoon]

I work for the city of Montreal if don't have a guy in front the police give u a ticket of around 500 bucks. the guy is there for your safety and keep an eye for any object that might break the snowblower...

[Chuck2k6]

Yup. I've seen them have to tell the blower operator to shut it down because a car or person is in the way. This guy told me that a couple years ago a pedestrian walked across the other side of the street and no one saw her. The blower accidentally overshot the truck, hitting the woman walking -- she cartwheeled into the snowbank; it flipped her completely around.

[crackedglassheart]

CAUTION! St.John's has to many workers getting over paid! Thats why the sidewalks are not getting done! If I was the mayor I would pay them minnimum wage!! FUCK THOSE LAZY WORKERS! Start pinning them off with rocks next time you see 5 people watching one guy work!

[crackedglassheart]

What the fuck??? TWO GODDAMN PLOWS!!! Get on the fucking sidewalks assholes! We should all start riot, if the sidewalks dont get plowed neither does the fucking roads! put that in your pipe and smoke it fuck tards!!!!!

[flyrock45]

now take this video to the mayor in toronto, to show him how its really done!

[podscn]

next time you get this much snow, call in the military like they do in toronto....

[Chuck2k6]

No, they call in the army for an inch up there... hah.

We can get two feet of it in one day and our mayor doesn't even bat an eyelash. State of Emergency? What's that?

[iceemikie]

I live in Alaska and wished this is how they did it here....I will use this video to show our mayor how it is done....

thanks

[vvvTTTvvv00]

yout income tax money at work st jonersss

[newfietu]

I remember it well lol........

[stellarflight]

Nice vid. You're screwed if you live in the US Midwest. Unless you have a relative with a tractor and plow, you're screwed.

[FederalQsiren]

interrestion video! thanks for sharring.

[drumteen]

Why blue strobes?i never heard of them useing blue. ive seen dumptrucks with green andsome blue but whats up with it? thanks Great video

[Chuck2k6]

In Newfoundland, blue and amber (yellow) are used for caution/warning lights. Police use blue/red/white, and fire/medics use red/amber/white. Green and amber are used by some media "PR" vehicles, and private security companies use red and amber.

[nfldkillboy]

Yeah, the good ol rumbling of the beast as it clears your street, you can see the blue flashes at your window... comforting in some way...

[Chuck2k6]

And in the "Snow Clearing Information" pamphlet the city gives to all residents, this is one of the Frequently Asked Questions:

"Why do snow clearing and removal operations cause so much noise?"

'Cause the trucks and plows don't work so well if we turn them off and have to push them.

[9150man]

In Ontario its illegal to not have a blue strobe light flashing while doing snow removal.

[blurrybigfoot74]

I find the snow plowing has never been worse since they've claimed to have all their plows rigged with GPS.

[Chuck2k6]

Yes, they do use an AVL system, and it's quite accurate too. The plow goes past your house exactly when it's passing your house on the screen.

I think the main problem is a combination of new drivers and city growth.

[JazzMaggot]

Oh yeah, I realize that we're last priority and all of the reasons that might slow them down, but maybe if they hired on more drivers & got more plows it wouldn't be so bad. I'm not putting them down altogether, They're doing a great job everywhere else but that snow storm a few weeks ago was rediculous.

[Chuck2k6]

The did recently purchase some brand new equipment. I think most of the problem lies in the fact that the city is growing faster than it's snowclearing capabilities.

[JazzMaggot]

St.John's City Counsel does not know how to clear my street. I swear to God they get the worst people to come plow us out & they dont do it until around 2 in the morning. We're usually stuck on the street until then anyways because they block us off.

Even when they do our cul-de-sac, they make one swoop around the place & leave a fucking huge pile in the middle.Our fire hidrants are still snowed in so basically if anything happenes, we're screwed.

[Chuck2k6]

I admit that the snowclearing hasn't been great around St. John's this winter, but in defense of the city, look at it from their persepctive:

They have to deal with Priority 1 streets first. There's a lot of them. They include the major roads as well as potentially dangerous roads or sections of roads. As if plowing roads (especially in the downtown area) isn't hard enough, they often have to deal with parked/abandoned cars where there shouldn't be any. This slows them a lot.

[Chuck2k6]

They will stay on these roads until they are done. Then they move on to Priority 2 roads, which are mostly residential collector roads. They do these while trying to widen out the P1 roads.

THEN they do P3 roads, cul-de-sacs included. One pass is all most roads get initially. By the time a cul-de-sac gets a second or third pass, it's often two days (at least) after a major event (like the storms of a couple weeks ago)

[Chuck2k6]

As for the hydrants, they try and clear them out eventually, through private contractors. However, the city encourages residents to make an effort to clear the hydrant near them. After all, it's a small price to pay considering it may be your house that's burning down while the fire department has to dig it out.

[scandal101]

NICE! I drive a snowplow for a living!

[Chuck2k6]

Very cool... may I ask where? (I say this before checking your profile, of course... hah)

[smith954]

cool