Halifax brings in powerful machines to tackle street ice

Work is underway toremove the thick slabs of ice that blankets streets all over Halifax, but the solution is slow and expensive.

The city has brought in powerful machines that can rip through thick ice with precision and force.

Sunday night, the graders tackled Waterloo Street, scraping up a foot of solid ice from the pavement.

The crew says it takes about 11 hours to do one kilometre.

Residents say, slow or not, they are pleased with the results.

"Well amazingly,they turned this into a new street overnight," said Brock Vair. "Yeah, a new world."

The city hired four graders from private contractors at a cost of $40,000 for every10 hours they are on the road.

Althoughdesigned for ice removal, if not used properly in these conditions they can do a lot of damage to curbs, manholes, storm drains and other infrastructure.

Superintendent of winter operations, Darrin Natolino says it took time to secure the equipment.

Operators not around

"Finding that equipment isn't the easiest thing. There are a lot of graders out there in the summer time. But in the winter time a lot of that gear gets parked," he said.

"Operators aren't around. They need to get located and brought in from you know, wherever it is that they spend their winters."

The graders cost about $300,000 and the blades can make a clean cut through 30 cm of ice.

The city says only those streets that have eight or more inches of ice might get cleaned up. Officials have been in touch with police, Capital Health, fire and the school boards to come up with a priority list.

"We recognize that we won't be able to do all of them," Natolino says. "So it's a just a matter of prioritizing them and doing the ones that make more sense."

The graders will be back on the streets of Halifax starting at 8 p.m. onMonday.