THUNDER BAY — A relatively early-season spike in temperatures in Thunder Bay this week is being blamed for some flooding issues city road crews are currently dealing with.
The city has closed a stretch of Carrick Street, located in the Intercity area, between 11th Avenue and Hewitson Street, as well as Hewitson Street from where it intersects with Carrick west to Russell Street.
Those closures mean drivers can now no longer turn north onto Carrick from Dunlop Street, the city has said.
The combination of warm temperatures causing a fast thaw earlier this week and still-frozen culverts and storm drains means water effectively has nowhere to go, said Ian Spoljarich, the city’s roads manager.
“Usually, we see this a little later in the spring — end of February is a bit earlier,” Spoljarich said. “But with the warmer temperatures in the last few days, we're seeing a lot of melt.”
“We still have a lot of ice and snow banks kind of covering these catch basins, so we got to go out and clear those so that the water can get to where it needs to go, which has been a challenge the last few days.”
City crews have been working to clear the blockages, he said, adding that one break they’re catching is that there’s been virtually no precipitation to add to the problem.
“When we see the rain or the snow, with these warmer temperatures, it definitely increases those issues that we have,” he said. “So, right now we're just crossing our fingers that we don't see any rain or snow in the forecast.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Environment Canada was calling for a 40 per cent chance of flurries or rain showers overnight and a low of 0 C, but was predicting periods of snow on Thursday and Friday, with temperatures dropping to -20 C by Friday night.
As far as potholes are concerned, Spoljarich said crews are doing what they can with cold mix asphalt, which is used for temporary fixes. The more permanent hot mix product, he said, generally isn’t available until around the May long weekend.
-With files from Justin Hardy
