Snow Away

Spot the difference.

There isn’t really such a thing as a “snow day” in Montréal like I experienced in other winter-weather cities I lived in, where schools would be shut down for the day if there was too much snow, or the office was closed since the roads were too gnarly (and people would work from home, or not at all), or the federal government would shut down due to the inability of the local government to remove the snow (ahem, Washington, DC).

But here in Montréal, snow is a regular part of winter living, and life goes on. It is such a regular event that it is a non-event. Of course, this is in large part thanks to the city’s efficient snow removal operation, which I described in my previous post on the First Snow (of many). As we have gotten deeper into the winter, I’ve started to learn more about the snow removal process.

First there is the salt and gravel. So much gravel. It’s put down to prevent slipping on the sidewalks and roads, which makes sense, but boy is it a lot of gravel. It’s always getting stuck on the soles of your boots (or, worse, creeping inside your boots), which is why people avoid wearing their boots inside their houses, as I mentioned in my Winter Gear post.

Second there is the plowing. The plowing comes when there is 2.5 centimeters or more of snow on the ground. If that sounds like a precise figure, it’s because it’s all very precisely planned out by the Ville de Montréal Snow Removal Operations.

We have a plan for that.

Of course, every city that has snow has snow plows, but here it isn’t merely a regular old truck with a plow rigged on the front. Québec doesn’t mess around – there are some heavy duty, serious business, purpose-built plows. They remind me of the big agricultural machines you see on industrial-scale farms for harvesting and plowing large fields. There are also the “mini-tank” plows that clear the sidewalks.

Third there is the SNOW REMOVAL. Mind you, snow removal is different from snow plowing. Plowing just pushes the snow to the side of the road or sidewalk. But once there is 10 centimeters or more of snow accumulated on the ground, it’s not enough to simply push it around. There is so much of it, you have to actually remove it altogether from the city streets.

So the city puts up bright orange no-parking signs on the sides of the roads it plans to plow on any given day. If you parked on the street, you’d better move your car to a different location. Because if you don’t do it yourself on time, well, your car will just get removed along with the snow.

I have seen it in action right in front my apartment – a sort of “snow police” truck leads the pack, driving ahead on the road to be plowed and ensuring no cars remain parked there. If there is a car there, they start blaring their siren, to presumably give the car’s owner a chance to get dressed, run out their door to the street, and move their car – before the tow truck shows up.

Trailing the surveillance truck is a tow truck, which relentlessly tows all the don’t-park-here-today-because-we’re-going-to-mega-plow-you cars. These aren’t like the private tow trucks in America, that kidnap your car to a private lot. The Ville de Montréal just wants your car out of the way of the snow removal train which is fast approaching. So they move your car to whatever random location that is convenient for them and not being plowed that day. It’s your job to find the car after… and pay the ticket.

Once any errant cars are removed from the plowing path, the snow removal train begins. It’s not an actual train, but it’s about as big and noisy. This is when shit gets real.

A series of plows work together in tandem, one after the other, to push the snow into a long narrow pile. Then a special sort of snow “sucking” plow runs over it, spinning a spiral that pulls the snow up inside and then spits it out into the air – so that it lands into a massive open-topped container truck that is slowly trundling alongside to catch the snow spray.

When one truck fills up with snow, there is another empty one waiting behind the snow-sucker to take up its place, and the full truck peels off and drives outside the city to a site where they dump the snow into massive mountains.

It’s hard to conceptualize if you’ve never seen it (and hard to believe even when you do see it), so here is a great little short film showcasing the process.