A resident shovels snow off a small roof in Sydney, N.S., on Feb 5. The community received more than 150 centimetres of snow over the past three days, according to Environment Canada.Shane Wilkie/The Canadian Press
Days after one of Nova Scotia’s largest-ever winter storms, many Cape Bretoners remain trapped in their homes by a massive dump of snow that has led the municipality to call a local state of emergency and plead for help from provincial and federal governments.
A stalled low-pressure system over the past three days brought the extreme weather, blanketing parts of the province’s mainland with up to 80 centimetres and more than 150 cm in Sydney, the largest community in Cape Breton, according to Environment Canada.
While people in other parts of Nova Scotia and the Maritimes were still digging out on Monday, Cape Breton Regional Municipality was stuck because of the epic snowfall, which blocked doors and encased vehicles.
“It’s chest deep in some areas. In some areas it’s over people’s heads the way it blew up,” said Earlene MacMullin, a city councillor in North Sydney.
“People are trapped in their homes, even people with plows and snow blowers. The snow is like cinder block – it’s so wet, it’s so heavy.”
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said he’s doing everything in his power to locate and move all available plows, including bringing them in from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
“I know there’s lots of families who are isolated and we just ask them to be patient,” he said. “It will be days before some of these rural roads are clear.”
On Monday afternoon, John Lohr, the cabinet minister responsible for Nova Scotia’s Office of Emergency Management, sent a letter to federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan, saying the province needs heavy equipment to help with snow removal, portable fuel storage equipment, and air transport assistance to help with the delivery of critical supplies and the evacuation of isolated people.
“Our province has experienced a rare extreme snowfall event that has brought particularly severe impacts to northeastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton,” Mr. Lohr wrote. “More assistance is still required to open roads and restore the flow of essential goods and personnel.”
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Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Amanda McDougall said some residents are starting to panic after being trapped in their own homes by the snow.
“We can’t do this by ourselves,” she said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “It’s been a long number of days, and some people are very isolated and stranded right now, and it’s very difficult to find the resources and the human power to get people shovelled out.”
Ms. McDougall said a local state of emergency, which the municipality called on Sunday, is necessary to encourage people to stay off the roads. Drivers were getting stuck and abandoning their cars, which she said became hazardous to snowplow equipment operators and emergency vehicles.
On Parliament Hill Monday, Mr. Sajjan told reporters that he has sent Parks Canada snow removal equipment and Canadian Coast Guard helicopters to help in Cape Breton. He said Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada, Team Rubicon and the Red Cross, which he said were closer than the Canadian Armed Forces, will also be assisting.
“If the situation changes, we are ready to provide any additional support as needed,” he said.
The province’s chief engineer of public works, Mark Peachey, told reporters that Cape Breton Regional Municipality is a “top priority.” He reallocated snow removal equipment from across the province to the area, and operators are doing their best “under extremely difficult circumstances,” he said.
“We haven’t seen road clearing operations like this since White Juan,” he said, referring to the nor’easter of 2004, which dropped up to 100 cm of snow and shut down businesses, schools and government offices for days.
Twenty snow clearing vehicles – roughly 5 per cent of the fleet – are out of commission because of the magnitude of the storm, Mr. Peachey said. The province has hired 55 pieces of equipment, 32 of which he said are on the way or already working in Cape Breton.
On Monday, many schools were closed, and government offices delayed opening or closed for the day. In P.E.I., a provincial by-election slated for Monday was postponed until Wednesday.
By Monday afternoon, 1,600 Nova Scotia Power customers were still in the dark, mostly on Cape Breton Island, which is connected to the province by a causeway.
Nova Scotia Power storm lead Matt Drover said the amount of snow on roads poses the biggest challenge to repairing power lines where trees have fallen. He said crews were working to restore power by Tuesday, but it could be longer in difficult-to-access areas.