Mother Nature has reminded Barrie residents just who is in charge.
She dumped 15 to 20 centimetres of snow on the city, starting later Friday night and into Saturday morning.
Many Barrie residents have spent the morning shovelling the white stuff from their driveways and walkways.
Snow blowers have also had plenty of use.
Dave Friary, the city’s director of operations, said all staff were called in Friday night to address the snowstorm.
“The challenge today will be vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” he said. “We realize people will be moving their vehicles onto the streets so they can shovel their driveways, and this slows down our operations.
“Safety is our top priority, so if needed we will be out again this evening cleaning up roads and sidewalks.”
Friary said the snowplow routes range from 30 to 50 kilometres and can take as long as 10 hours to clear once, so some equipment is still out -- as of about 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
The city's winter maintenance responsibilities include 1,575 km of roads, 619 km of sidewalks, 25 parking lots, 72 crosswalks, 113 bus shelters, 708 bus stops and downtown sidewalk intersections.
The city’s winter maintenance update says contractor combo units were dispatched at 9 p.m. Friday on priority and secondary roads. Combo units are tandem dump trucks with a full plow set up, combined with the ability to sand and/or salt when needed .
City plows went out at midnight, and sanders will be dispatched when the plow routes are complete.
Sidewalk units were dispatched at 3 a.m. Saturday on priority sidewalks; plowing and sanding will continue until finished.
City and contractor units for residential sidewalks were dispatched at 4 a.m.
As for downtown Barrie, parking lots and bridge decks, crews were dispatched at 4 a.m. to clear and salt approaches.
Operations are still ongoing and will continue until complete.
The good news is that Environment and Climate Change Canada has ended its snowfall warning for Barrie.
The forecast is for periods of snow ending Saturday morning.
But there’s to be increasing cloudiness today, with a 60 per cent chance of flurries overnight Saturday into Sunday.
The wind chill temperature will remain -7 C.
