By Greg Fry

City prepares for snow melt

Mar 1, 2018 | 9:53 AM

KAMLOOPS — With warmer temperatures in the forecast for Kamloops, city crews are preparing for the big melt.

Environment Canada is forecasting temperatures to reach the high single digits by next week.

“So, that’s going to start the meltdown of the snow that we’ve got here and our fingers are crossed,” says Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman. “As long as it’s a nice, slow melt we’ll do all right. It’s when we get the rain events falling on top of the large snowpack that we have that we start to see some issues.”

He says crews have been preparing for the work by trying their best to make sure all city catch basins, rock pits and drainage infrastructure is clear.

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“It’s very physical work. We’ve got 6800 catch basins in the city, so to think that we’re going to get to every one is of course impractical,” Wightman says. “So, we try and prioritize them and that’s where every year we ask residents, if they’re able to, to clear catch basins or rock pits in front of their property.”

As for problem areas, he says the North Shore and the lower lying areas tend to get hit with the melt prior to areas in higher eleveations like Juniper, Aberdeen and Pineview.

Wightman is hopeful crews will receve a helping hand from Mother Nature in the short term as well.

“If we can get everything to freeze up again overnight then it just takes that much longer during the warm daytime temperatures and that’s where we’re fortunate over the next week with overnight lows expected to dip below freezing.”