Don’t expect the city works crews to be buying the beer should they run into their counterpart from the Airport anytime soon.
Last week’s storm has left many on Kaien Island with tales of clogged roads, abandoned cars and a sense of wonderment over snow removal strategies. But, all was fine over at Dibgy Island that at least according to the story weaved from the viewpoint of the airport in Thursday’s Daily News.
Of course, city workers might be quick to point out that it helps when you only have one road with little traffic to get in the way and a stretch of runway which likewise isn’t exactly running at capacity. But that won’t keep the airport officials from delivering the report that they’re still pretty happy with the job done on Digby.
Of course, the fact that the road on Digby Island and the airport are both hidden away from most Rupertites, means that the workers there could probably work quite well without the benefit of the Monday morning quarterbacking of Rupertites that comes with events on this side of the harbour.
While the city struggled to keep its plows on the road and got to what appeared to many to be a late start in the removal of the snow, the airport kept the runways open and the passengers moving once the flights actually arrived.
Though most would suggest that over all the airport crews probably have it pretty easy compared to their city compatriots, last time we checked there were no abandoned cars, steep hills or rubbernecking motorists to get in the way. Plow the runways with some lunatic coming down a hill sideways at you and perhaps the comparison might be a bit more level not to mention entertaining.
The day of snow at the airport and how the attack was rebuffed was archived for us in the Thursday edition of the Daily News.
Crews raise their game to keep aircraft flying
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, April 05, 2007
When Prince Rupert’s roads were clogged with snow last week, and even the city’s rugged taxi fleet called it quits, there was one road that was still open for traffic — the airport runway.
“We weren’t expecting all that snow. According to the forecast it was rain that was supposed to come in,” said William MacNeil, airport manager. “But the boys handled it quite well.”
Last week’s storm has left many on Kaien Island with tales of clogged roads, abandoned cars and a sense of wonderment over snow removal strategies. But, all was fine over at Dibgy Island that at least according to the story weaved from the viewpoint of the airport in Thursday’s Daily News.
Of course, city workers might be quick to point out that it helps when you only have one road with little traffic to get in the way and a stretch of runway which likewise isn’t exactly running at capacity. But that won’t keep the airport officials from delivering the report that they’re still pretty happy with the job done on Digby.
Of course, the fact that the road on Digby Island and the airport are both hidden away from most Rupertites, means that the workers there could probably work quite well without the benefit of the Monday morning quarterbacking of Rupertites that comes with events on this side of the harbour.
While the city struggled to keep its plows on the road and got to what appeared to many to be a late start in the removal of the snow, the airport kept the runways open and the passengers moving once the flights actually arrived.
Though most would suggest that over all the airport crews probably have it pretty easy compared to their city compatriots, last time we checked there were no abandoned cars, steep hills or rubbernecking motorists to get in the way. Plow the runways with some lunatic coming down a hill sideways at you and perhaps the comparison might be a bit more level not to mention entertaining.
The day of snow at the airport and how the attack was rebuffed was archived for us in the Thursday edition of the Daily News.
Crews raise their game to keep aircraft flying
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, April 05, 2007
When Prince Rupert’s roads were clogged with snow last week, and even the city’s rugged taxi fleet called it quits, there was one road that was still open for traffic — the airport runway.
“We weren’t expecting all that snow. According to the forecast it was rain that was supposed to come in,” said William MacNeil, airport manager. “But the boys handled it quite well.”
Unlike the city, which had two of its three snow ploughs break down when an unexpected 22 centimetres of snow dumped down last Wednesday, the airport had relatively new equipment ready to go.
A couple of years ago, the airport was able to acquire a new loader and snow blower.
“Sometimes, you see that equipment just parked there, but when you need it, you have it and it gets you out of a jam. It kept everything running operationally,” said MacNeil.
When the snow started coming down, the first thing that happened at the airport was the power went out.
“We went on emergency power right away,” said MacNeil.
Then the airport began losing some of its communications.
“Some of the NAV Canada sites went down because they lost power as well and their emergency back-up didn’t kick in at the same time,” he said.
“We had to deal with all these things but we got it all up and running. Even the road itself, we had some people come up and clear the road.”
Nature was vicious out on Digby Island. Even though the road was cleared, when the Hawkair passengers came up a half an hour later, passengers actually got out to help clear trees that had blocked the roadway.
Then staff came back in at six the next morning and had to cut more than 20 fallen trees in order to get the road open again.
“It was a steady ordeal but as result we didn’t lose any flights from our point of view.
“We had the runway open,” he said.
Of the two flights that were canceled, neither was due to a problem with airport operations. A Hawkair flight was canceled because a navigation aid went down 15 minutes before the Hawkair flight got in and Air Canada Jazz had to cancel one of its flights because there were problems with communication equipment.
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