City crews have been working since the weekend to clear catch basins around town (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

SNOW MELTING

City busy clearing catch basins as temperatures rise, snow melts

Jan 20, 2020 | 5:03 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the temperatures warming up rapidly, the snow is melting, and now the City of Kamloops is turning its attention to preventing flooding in certain neighbourhoods by clearing catch basins.

Since the mercury rose above zero over the weekend, city crews have been chipping away at the windrows that are covering many of the 6,800 catch basins.

“Currently with the melt going on, we’re fortunate the weather hasn’t got too warm. So we do have crews actively removing snow from catch basins in our priority areas,” said the city’s utilities maintenance supervisor Joe Luison. “The importance of clearing a catch basin is just to limit any damage that could occur to homes. Once it comes overrun, you have a hard time catching up.”

With thousands of catch basins to clear, the city is asking residents to do their part and help where they can to prevent flooding.

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“So what’s happened with the snow drift is it limits, the water runoff to get to the catch basins, so just opening a small window at the one in front of your home, just with a shovel by hand, allows the water to start to penetrate and it’ll start to melt the surrounding snow around it,” noted Luison.