'These conditions are tough' says Trevor Harvie

A big drop in temperatures overnight resulted in slick, messy sidewalks across the municipality this morning.

A storm New Years' Day brought 17 cm of snow to Halifax, followed by rain and freezing temperatures of minus 16 overnight.

This created tough conditions for snow removal crews, causing delays on plowing residential sidewalks.

"We do recognize that it is challenging out there right now, but it will get better," said superintendent of winter operations Trevor Harvie.

Harvie says crews were out today scraping sidewalks, and have transitioned to spreading salt mixed with sand to provide some extra traction.

This is in front of my house. ./1 pic.twitter.com/G7W8oXhSDK — Waye Mason (@WayeMason) January 2, 2019

Crews were slowed down while clearing on New Years' Day due to having to clear sidewalks more than once, and are still trying to get caught up.

"The ripple effect is delaying it a bit."

He told NEWS 95.7 that salt was put down overnight in hopes it would help melt the ice, but the cold temperatures stopped it from being effective.

Harvie says there are 100 pieces of sidewalk equipment servicing 1,000 kilometres of sidewalks in the city every storm. Typically all of the equipment is deployed after a storm.

The city's budget for clearing sidewalks during the winter in around $4.5 million according to Harvie.

"Ultimately these conditions are tough. It's not about how many pieces of equipment we have. Obviously it would be ideal to have a piece for every section of sidewalk, but is that feasible and realistic? Probably not," he explained."

"We have a lot of dedicated operators out there now fighting hard and hopefully the public will be patient with them. they're doing the best they can out there," he said.

While snow and ice removal is the city's job, Harvie says there's nothing stopping homeowners from taking it into their own hands if they want to clear snow on their own.

Another chilly night is forecasted for tonight, with temperatures dropping down to -16.