Residents of 100 Mile House and the surrounding area woke up to a premature dumping of snow earlier this week.
The storm made for difficult commutes, power outages, downed trees and many of the trees in town lost a large portion of their branches.
Brad Scott, the operations supervisor for the District of Public Works, said his team has been “going full steam ahead” with tree removal since Monday.
“I had a feeling something was going to happen, so we had everything ready to go and I had all the crews in early and stuff, so yeah, we were prepared for that.”
Scott said he doesn’t remember snow ever coming this heavy or wet this early in the season and that it’s because leaves are still on the trees, holding the snow, that made so many branches have come down.
“It’s just another day in public works, so we just, you know, started going to town and cleaning up.”
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Wendy Clark, vice president of the Forest Grove Legion, said she was not ready for the snow and neither was her vehicle. When trying to get an appointment to get winter tires put on, she said the wait is over two weeks.
The Legion is also struggling to find somebody who can plow their parking lot, she said.
“Not sure what we will do this year, no one has come forward.”
Megan Rolland, who lives in Lone Butte, was one of approximately 3,300 BC Hydro customers whose power went out on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 2.
They have four children and no wood-burning stove or generator, so she said they had to come into town yesterday morning to have breakfast at Tim Hortons.
“We can turn on our gas stove if we light it, like just our range, so it doesn’t really warm the house, but you can always make soup and stuff,” she said.
Thankfully, power was on when Rolland returned home, but she said, “none of our clocks are the same, still.”
Rolland plans to buy a generator so they will be ready if they have another power outage.
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Barb Matfin, secretary of the 100 Mile Nordics Club, said club members laughed when they saw the early snowfall and said, “Jeez, we’d better get out the rollers.”
Realistically, though, the cross-country ski club isn’t planning for an early start to the season.
“I fully anticipate - and I’ve lived here my whole life - that it’s going to melt,” so she said there wouldn’t be much point in getting geared up now.
When asked whether they’re secretly hoping the snow will stick around, she said, “I think a lot of us aren’t, because we still have to plant our garlic in and put our gardens away and all that, so, no, it would be hard on those who still have some work to do.”
It would be possible to ski on this amount of snow, she said, but only with cheaper skis that are ok to get a little scratched by some rocks that may still stick out from the snow once it’s packed down.
“But hey, if it’s going to stay we’ll ski.”
If you need help removing branches or trees from your property (within the district), you can phone the district at 250-395-2434 and workers will come to offer their assistance.
beth.audet@100milefreepress.net
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