With worst of snowstorm over, services begin to resume in Winnipeg

It was supposed to be one of the worst snowstorms in decades, prompting schools and services across Winnipeg to shutter early.

That wasn't quite the case in the city this week.

Nevertheless, Winnipeggers had a lot of digging out to do Thursday.By noon Thursday, Winnipeg had seen about 28 centimetres of snow.

"So that's pretty significant." CBCmeterologist John Saudersaid.

For those who had to work Thursday, getting around was a challenge.

Manpraat Singh says he had to tell his boss he was going to be lateafter spending 20 minutes digging his car out.

"He said that is fine. 'Yeah, you can take your time,' because he knows that there are not many customers there. Everybody's stuck. "

Roads, services reopening

The Perimeter Highway, which had been closed Wednesday due to poor winter driving conditions, was reopened Thursday afternoon.

The City of Winnipeg says crews are clearing streets, sidewalks, active transportation pathsand back lanes based on the priority system, starting with regional streets, major routesand priority-ctive transportation routes.

An extended snow route parking ban remains in effect, prohibiting parking on snow routes between midnight and 7 a.m.

City services that closed down in anticipation of the storm, such as libraries, pools, arenas, and the Brady Road Landfill, will be reopened Saturday,

Garbage pickup will now be delayed by two days, meaning if your pickup was supposed to be Wednesday, you'll now need to put your bins out Friday.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says it is also resuming home care services, with the majority resuming as early as Thursday evening.

It activated its severe weather response plan Wednesday, due to the storm, cancelling home careexcept for high-risk patients.

Less than expected

Rosalie Finch and her daughter, Grace, used the snow days as an opportunity to build a gigantic snowman.

"It's been a long hard winter for families, so it was just perfect to be outside yesterday," she said.

Rosalie lived through the blizzard of 1997, and says this one doesn't compare.

"That was a very crazy time," she said. "This doesn't match it.

"I grew up on the farm so you would have many snow days there. The pictures we look back at now the snow is above our heads, but I haven't seen that in a longtime."

When it comes to the roads, it appears drivers decided to stay put.

CAA Manitoba was expecting to have close to 400 service calls by Thursday afternoon, but saw only a quarter of that, says Heather Mack, manager of government and community relations for the service.

"We don't want to have to be rescuing people from the sides of highways, so if they made the choice to stay at home, that's terrific."

When it comes to air travel, Tyler MacAfee, vice-president of the Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA), says most flights were still cancelled Thursday morning.

"A lot of that is because the planes yesterday didn't come in. Airlines preemptively cancelled pretty much everything yesterday, so we're seeing cancellations up to around noon this morning," he said.

Beyond that, however, remained a guess.

"It's really tough to say. As everybody knows, Mother Nature kind of has its own plan," MacAfee said. "If you're planning to travel today, make sure you keep a close eye on your flights."

WATCH| Scenes from the snowstorm:

Inside the southern Manitoba snow globe

3 years ago

Duration 1:00

The winds whipped, the flakes fell and Manitobans carried on in the midst of a days-long snowstorm that gripped the southern part of the province.