As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

I'm pretty sure that I'm not that special, and that your city is equally inept at dealing with snowfall.  Last weekend we took on quite a bit of the white gold.  I believe when it was all said and done, we had accumulated around 50cm (20 inches) in just one weekend.  Wow!  I actually enjoy the snow and winter in general.  The part that I do not enjoy is where I have to get up and drive to work on roads that are completely unmanaged.  Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere where it was snowy for 8 months of the year, and not just a weekend.  I would snowmobile to work and spend much time playing in the great outdoors.  Kinda reminds me of playing hockey on an outdoor rink as a kid.  That's another story...

Back to my city though, I find that snowfall is something that they just aren't equipped to handle.  Take for starters the fact that the city doesn't own any snow equipment.  I wish I was joking.  First of all, the equipment that is used to clear the streets is construction equipment.  I don't remember the last time I saw a vehicle that was designed to remove snow in my neighbourhood.  I watched a front-end loader plow my street on the weekend and up on the side of it was a big sign that read "Hertz Rentals".  It gets better though.  There was no city employee in that piece of heavy equipment.  The city farms out the work to the lowest bidder and teams of sub-contractors take to the streets. 

A couple of years ago I moved from a busy and industrial main road to a more quiet and secluded street nestled deep in a sub-division jungle.  When I lived in my old house the streets were always clear.  The road was a bus route and bus routes are a high priority.  The first winter in my new house I was shocked to discover how little the plows came down my street.  It was a consistent struggle to get my little Saturn out onto the main roads.  One day I called City Hall to get the story on the plow situation.  The pleasant woman who answered the phone explained the order that streets get plowed, and guess what?  My classification of street was always one of the last, if at all.  I can get stuck even when all the other roads are bare.  This past weekend, the snowfall started on Thursday and continued steady until Sunday.  The first and only plow to hit my street came on Sunday afternoon, at about 2pm.  Totally unacceptable.  When my car lease comes due, I'm going to be purchasing a 4-wheel drive pickup truck.

As for the blizzard in general, let's just say that lucky for me, I decided to purchase a snow blower this year.  Best $1500 I have ever spent.  I bought a 10.5 Hp Toro snow thrower.  It is a workhorse.  It chewed threw the snow like a hot knife in butter, as well as tackling the ice formations at the base of the driveway where the plows had been.  It helped make a giant hill in the front yard for the kids to play on and helped the less capable clear their driveways and sidewalks all around our neighbourhood.  I even cleared a section of the road in front of my house, just to help with my cars.