A senior politician in Nova Scotia’s rural Pictou County says his municipality is still struggling to clear last weekend’s massive snowfall, partly because the area has been overlooked by the provincial government.
Warden Robert Parker says council decided Wednesday night not to declare a local state of emergency because it would make no difference to the cleanup effort after a record-breaking amount of snow fell on the province.
Parker says he’s aware that many people in northeastern Nova Scotia remain trapped in their homes because of huge snowdrifts, not unlike the mess the storm left behind in Cape Breton, where 150 centimetres of snow has left much of the island paralyzed.
Vehicles are buried under snow in Westville, N.S. in Pictou County on Feb. 7, 2024.
Megan King/Global News
The warden says Cape Breton typically gets more attention because it is a place with national recognition.
He says almost all of his county’s clogged roads are maintained by the provincial government, which he says must take a serious look at buying bigger equipment to handle future “super storms.”
Parker says that on Wednesday, the province delivered ten snowmobiles to the county, which will be used to reach vulnerable people who haven’t been able to leave their homes.
The provincial government has said more than 1,000 people are working around the clock using about 400 pieces of equipment to clear snow across Nova Scotia.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 8, 2024.