It is a beautiful and rare occurrence but when snow comes to this part of Canada, it comes with a wallop. A 36-hour blizzard hit the province leaving up to 48-centimeters of snow in the suburbs of Vancouver and about six to eight centimeters of snow across the southern tip of Vancouver Island A cold air mass from Alaska has replaced the tropical one from Hawaii we normally enjoy.
Victoria is, for the most part, shut down today as driving anywhere is treacherous. The snow started falling early yesterday morning. As the day progressed the intensity of the snow increased. By 1PM, visibility was cut to about ten feet with a dense wall of white powder
obscured trees, utility poles, parked vehicles and anything else drivers would normally steer their cars away from. Even if they could see the object, drivers don’t stand a chance in these conditions, especially drivers conditioned to driving in our normally ice-free climate. The snow stopped falling early this morning.
During yesterday’s white-out conditions, I saw a fully loaded bus side-skid across three lanes of road as it struggled for traction going up an otherwise gentle slope. It got stuck in a snow bank at the next stop, eventually fishtailing its way out. Limited public transit services started running in the Victoria area around 9:30 this morning. Images of the hundreds of accidents that occurred here and on the mainland have played across TV news and in the local newspapers. With temperatures expected to dip to -8 tonight and remain below freezing until Thursday at the earliest, the early part of this week is going to be played out in slow-freeze.
Though anyone who can safely make it in to work is sort of expected to try, people who depend on their vehicles are pretty much stranded. The side-streets are still not cleared and the highways are going to be skating rinks by the end of day. Conditions are expected to improve dramatically towards the end of the week.
Until then, it suddenly looks a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go… except at the shopping malls. They are virtually deserted today.
The Internet usage stats for this short period of extreme disruption generated by Enquisite should be extremely interesting.
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