Snow removal will take days, city says
A spokesman for the City of Montreal said it could take more than four days to remove the impressive amount of snow that has covered the municipality.
The city said a whopping 43 centimetres of snow has fallen so far at the Montreal-Trudeau airport, eclipsing the record set for Dec. 27, of 37.8 centimetres, reached in 1969.
According to Jacques-Alain Lavallée, the city's spokesman, it usually takes the snow fleet four days to remove 20 centimetres of snow.
He said he does not think the snow-clearing time will be doubled.
City crews have been at work since 4:15 a.m., when the accumulation reached 2.5 centimetres.
More than 1,000 workers are on the streets of Montreal to help clear the winter mess.
The city said it urges people to respect parking signs for snow removal. Lavallée said the city has put in place 5,700 parking spots for people to more their cars of the streets. People can call 311 for more information.
Lavallée said snow clearing operations will continue overnight and snow removal will begin at 7 a.m. Friday.
Montreal police are also recommending that people stay home to make way for emergency vehicles while southern Quebec gets slammed with up to 50 centimetres of snow.
Police spokesman Danny Richer said several roads are being blocked on and off in downtown Montreal to allow snowblowers to go through and clear off the snow.
Road closures include University Street, Papineau Avenue, D'Iberville Street and Sherbrooke Street.
The city's police force has opened its command centre to coordinate with other emergency services.
Marie-Claude Desgagnés, a spokeswoman for the Montreal-Trudeau airport said a total of 225 of departing and incoming flights from the northeastern regions of the United States and Toronto were canceled.
Officials say strong winds in Montreal are the main cause for the cancellations.
On Montreal's public transit system, buses, metros and trains were still running, though slippery roads and poor conditions were causing delays.
Dozens of buses were stuck in the snow and others struggled to make it up slippery hills across the island.
Those most affected were bus lines that run on hills, including Mont-Royal and Parc Avenue.
The STM is urging commuters to take the metro rather than the buses.
Laval's transit authority said some city bus services have been suspended due to the severe weather conditions.
A spokesperson for the service said transit on main routes is continuing and that all routes should be restored by rush hour.
Strong winds and heavy snow have knocked out power for about 2,600 customers in the Laurentians.
Hydro-Québec said the outages were triggered by power lines shorting out when they touched because of the wind.
The latest blast of winter weather comes only days after a storm knocked out power to more than 100,000 Hydro Quebec customers north and west of Montreal.
About 300 customers in the Laurentians and the Outaouais region have been without power since last Friday's storm.
The utility said it has 700 employees currently working to restore the outages.
Police are at the scene of a 15 vehicle pile-up about 50 kilometres west of Trois-Rivières. The crash, which happened earlier this afternoon, forced authorities to close down the westbound lanes on Highway 40 near exit 156.
Quebec provincial police said there were no injuries to report.
There is no word yet on when the lanes will be reopened.
The early-morning winter wallop left roads snow-covered and highways treacherous in the Montreal area.
"We have snow-covered roads with reduced visibility basically all the way to Ste-Agathe and Joliette and going east it goes just past Drummondville all the way to [Highway] 55," said Bruno Lacombe, spokesman for Transports Québec.
"We also have snow drifts, so the wind is bringing back the snow on the highway. Basically, just be careful when you are driving."
Lacombe said snow removal crews have been dispatched and they are working to clear major arteries as quickly as possible.
"We started to clean as soon as it started snowing and all the teams are out," he said.
