Repeated blasts of snow and cold temperatures over the past week have created a host of weather-related challenges in Delta.
Delta police were kept busy over the weekend, reporting 19 collisions between Friday and Sunday night.
Public relations coordinator Sharlene Brooks said none of the accidents were very serious with minor injuries, if any, reported.
"The majority of the collisions were related to the weather and road conditions. Most were single-vehicle, off-road accidents or vehicles spinning out," Brooks said.
"Since last Monday I would like to think people are taking precautions and have winterized their vehicles, but we have had a higher number of accidents due to the weather in the past few days, so it's really hard to gauge," added Brooks.
"We hope people are getting more prepared. I think the Corporation of Delta has been doing a really good job of keeping up to speed on the sanding and salting."
Randy Scott from Randy's Tirecraft in Tsawwassen said his staff has been extremely busy in the past week.
"Many drivers are totally unprepared," Scott said. "When people have been coming in they seem to be surprised that winter has come. The main thing is you need winter tires for winter conditions. No matter how good of a driver you think you are, you are a hazard on the road unless you have good tires. It's a safety thing."
Scott said he estimates one-third of his tire sales for the year take place in late November and early December.
At Home Hardware in Tsawwassen, there has been a huge run on snow shovels and salt.
"It's been incredible. We were the only show in town. Customers were Facebooking on Friday letting people know we had salt and we had people coming from as far as Burnaby," said retail operations manager Doug Osborne on Monday afternoon.
"We have about six skids left. We just got in some more snow shovels. We are literally the only store that has any in the Lower Mainland, I think. We had people lined up at 7 a.m. Monday morning because they knew we had it. We're just making sure the customers have it and we've seen a lot of happy people."
Hugh Fraser, acting director of engineering for the Corporation of Delta, said crews have been keeping up with the challenging road conditions.
"Sunday night we had the full fleet from about midnight on and they were focusing on the primary roads," Fraser said Monday afternoon. "It has been fairly broad ranging the last day or two. We have seen heavier amounts of snow in North Delta, but Ladner and Tsawwassen has also received snow, so for us it's just a matter of keeping on top of things."
Fraser said with cold weather expected for the remainder of this week, making sure the primary and secondary routes are salted and sanded will be a top priority.
"It will really depend on road conditions, so we will ramp things up as needed," he said.
One of the more significant challenges, he said, has been the Alex Fraser Bridge, which has been closed twice by the Ministry of Transportation in the last few days.
After snow and ice crashed down from the top of the bridge onto numerous vehicles last week, the ministry closed the Alex Fraser for almost six hours on Saturday afternoon and again for about four hours Monday afternoon to prevent a repeat occurrence. The closures shifted traffic towards the George Massey Tunnel, which turned Highway 99 into a parking lot during Monday's afternoon commute.
School closures have been minimal throughout the area with Southpointe Academy in Tsawwassen closed both Friday and Monday and Sacred Heart School in Ladner closed Monday.
Public schools were closed for a previously scheduled Pro-D Day last Friday, but were open Monday.
"Independent schools generally don't have the kinds of resources that we do, so that's why you see a lot of those schools typically closed when we do get these types of snow incidents," said Delta school district communications manager Jen Hill.
"As with most districts, whenever there is any kind of alert around snow, we have a senior team all around the district that are up at 5 a.m. monitoring the weather. It would have to be a significant amount of snow and a perceptible danger for travel and safety for the district and schools to close."
The demand for electricity has reached a new high for the year as freezing temperatures continue.
Province-wide BC Hydro says electricity demand peaked at 9,869 megawatts between 5 and 6 p.m. on Thursday, which is a new record for the year.
BC Hydro expects demand will remain higher than normal as the cold weather persists.
ICBC has also seen a huge spike in calls to its Dial-a-Claim centre. On Saturday, Dial-a-Claim received 2,177 calls.
Media spokesperson Adam Grossman said on an average Saturday they receive between 1,300 and 1,500 calls.
Grossman said during the last 12 months (Dec. 1, 2015 to Nov. 30, 2016) the average daily call volume was 2,811, but there were 5,176 calls on Monday, Dec. 5, 4,248 on Dec. 6 and between 3,500 and 4,200 calls last Wednesday through Friday.
Cold and sunny weather is expected for the rest of the week with daytime highs around zero. It's expected to warm up slightly by the weekend, bringing a mix of rain and snow.
