On this day in 1963, city crews added a sand-salt mixture to main roads after an overnight snowfall created treacherous conditions.
From the StarPhoenix archives:
The “first big sanding operation of the winter” on city streets took place Wednesday following the early morning fall of six inches of wet, heavy snow. It was continuing today.
A.F.G. Carroll, assistant city engineer, said this morning that he expected the sanding crews would have been at work an hour earlier than the usual 7 o’clock, in an extra effort to have streets ready for the early morning rush traffic.
The situation Wednesday was worse than usual, Mr. Carroll said, because the mild weather melted the snow and packed it into a near-ice condition that produced exceptionally slippery surfaces.
“On a day like yesterday,” he said, “you almost have to sand from one end of the city to the other.”
It was not simply a case of working from the central part of the city outwards. By the time one area would be sanded, another one previously done would require attention again.
Downtown streets, major thoroughfares and bus routes were the streets that were receiving attention. Mr. Carroll said he expected that “some overtime” would have been put in by sanding crews Wednesday.
“Some salt” was being mixed with the sand in this week’s operations, Mr. Carroll said, but it was less than the maximum amount sometimes used here.
“We are very skimpy on salt in this city,” he said. This was due to the climate. At temperatures around zero or below, the salt didn’t have too much effect.
It was most effective at temperatures of 20 degrees above zero and higher. Wednesday’s afternoon temperatures were in the 30-35 degree range, and Mr. Carroll said that the salt caused puddles to form at some street corners.
The purpose of the salt, he said, was to melt the snow enough to make the sand stick and provide some “bite.”
Mr. Carroll was not worried about the effect the operations would have on the city’s street-clearing budget, since the major costs in this field piled up from large quantities of snow that had to be removed.
So far, the quantity of snow had not been exceptional. Machines were moving the snow to piles in the centre of downtown streets, but otherwise operations were confined to making the streets safe, he said.
Actual removal of the piles of snow was not expected to start until the beginning of next week, Mr. Carroll said.
Throwback Thursday is a weekly StarPhoenix series where we revisit photos from Saskatoon’s past.
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