While the snow Kingston received on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day made the holidays more picturesque, a Wartman Avenue resident said she and her neighbourhood were put in danger and isolated from emergency services for most of the day because her street wasn’t plowed until the evening.

“We couldn’t get out of the house at all,” Katherine Wowk told the Whig-Standard on Thursday.

On Christmas morning, her husband tried to leave for his sister’s home but couldn’t get out of the driveway. He called a taxi at about noon, but it got stuck, too. She said a city plow went right by them but didn’t stop. Eventually, the taxi was able to get out and got her husband to his sister’s place.

“In order to get out of the driveway, you have to do an Indy 500 run,” Wowk said. “You literally have to hit the snowbank and hope you make it out. There’s a risk of going into the culvert, there’s a risk of injuring children, there’s a lot of risk.”

Wowk speculated that because it was Christmas Day, there weren’t many plows on the road. Bill Linnen, operations manager of Kingston public works, said there were more than 30 plows on the roads that day, nearly its entire contingent. He said it was a “very good turnout” for both Christmas and Boxing days.

“We were able to respond to the storm early on Christmas with pretty much a normal storm response, which we were happy with,” Linnen said.

He said that when there is a heavier snowfall, it takes longer to get through the regular routes, but the day went according to plan. Monday through Friday there are regular staff working to plow the streets, but on weekends and holidays the majority of staff have to be called in, Linnen said.

“Those are staff who are away from their families on Christmas Day to come plow streets so other people can get to their families [instead],” Linnen said.

When plowing the nearly 1,800 kilometres of roadways in Kingston, public works prioritizes arterial roads, such as Highway 2 including Princess Street, Bath Road, John Counter Boulevard and Front Road, to be cleared within four hours in normal winter conditions. To be cleared within six hours are the collector and transit routes, including Lakeview Avenue, Stuart Street, Fort Henry Drive, parts of Gore Road and Rose Abbey Road, as well as Weller Avenue and Cedarwood Drive. Finally, there are the residential streets, such as Wartman Avenue, which are expected to be normally cleared within 16 hours of the first snowflake.

“As far as Wartman Avenue and that neighbourhood, it’s a residential street and it fits into the priority list as a residential street,” Linnen said. “We were able to meet the service levels for that road because it was plowed the same day as the storm.”

Wowk estimated Wartman Avenue was plowed by 7 p.m., but she was left with a giant snow windrow at the end of her driveway. She told Linnen in an email that he ruined her family’s Christmas Day.

Wowk said the plows also block essential storm sewers, including the one on her property, with snow that can result in flooding. However, her main concern is what would happen if there was an emergency. She noted that there are a number of elderly residents on the street, including her own 82-year-old father. If a taxi got stuck, she wondered what would happen if someone needed to go to the hospital. She discovered there was no emergency line for plows, and when she called 911 to get the street plowed as a preventive measure, they said there wasn’t anything they could do for her.

“The second time I phoned 911, they said they’d try to get a hold of somebody in ‘the yard,’ but obviously they couldn’t,” Wowk said.

Linnen said that should there be an emergency where police, the fire department or paramedics need a street cleared, the closest plow or plows are dispatched immediately. He estimated that situation comes up “maybe once every two or three years.”

“We haven’t experienced too many concerns with emergency vehicles not being able to access any street,” Linnen said. “But all of those services would contact us directly if they needed us.”

Wowk has lived in other areas of the city, including near Princess Street and Portsmouth Avenue, and has family across the city, but she said she has never seen snow collect on a street like it does on Wartman Avenue. She attributes the increased snow and wind to being near Lake Ontario. She agreed that the arterial routes should have priority, but she believes the city should take into account that some areas of the city get more snow than others, and she doesn’t like how long it takes crews to get to her neighbourhood.

“Wind is definitely a factor during snowstorms with drifting, but anyone who is along the lake, or the river, or lives in the rural areas where there are open farm fields is in the same situation in terms of wind and drifting,” Linnen said. “If there was a safety concern, the city would look at it differently, but it is a residential street and it’s treated as such, no better or different than any other residential street.”

Lakeside District Coun. Laura Turner said she is satisfied if the roads in her district are plowed within 48 hours. She was at her sister’s home on Lakeland Point Drive, just down the street from Wowk, on Christmas Day. She said that after every snowstorm she gets calls and emails with concerns about plowing streets and sidewalks.

“We can only do so much. It’s a big city and it’s difficult,” Turner said. “It’s hard. It was a big snowstorm, there are a lot of streets and it’s difficult to get to all of them all at once.”

scrosier@postmedia.com

Twitter: @StephattheWhig