Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Six days in to the worst snow storm in 15 years, Gravenhurst’s mayor says if Hwy. 11 wasn’t closed it would be a different story.

“We wouldn’t be here today,” said Heidi Lorenz. “That’s the nucleus of this problem.”

She blamed inexperienced drivers who couldn’t handle the amount of snow for being causing accidents that further clogged four back roads.

“We recognize this hasn’t been a good time. People are suffering. We are doing our very best to help them … to get to everybody.”

In a media Zoom call late this afternoon she said: “It’s been a long couple days. We know there’s a lot of frustration and anger and anxiety out there. We know it is frustrating. We are experiencing it. We have staff working around the clock to try and get this taken care of.

“We have run in to some challenges. As we all know the primary reason for us calling the emergency was the closure of Hwy. 11. Sure we got a ton of snow, but that closure was so long and created so many problems. Not only on the highway, being our main artery in town. But it spun off in to dozens of abandoned vehicles on our side roads. We had at least 50 fallen trees. Of course the hydro lines being down also made it really unsafe for travel.

“So we know it has been a long way to get here. But I want to assure the public that we are well on our way to some normalcy. We appreciate you, we appreciate your patience and we look forward to getting back to everyday snow clearing events. We hope to tell you shortly we’re in really good shape and that this event is over.”

Said Lorenz: “We can handle 10 cms of snow, but not this much. I can’t imagine how much tonnage of snow we’ve had.”

She said “a third of the community was cut off” with the highway closure.

But it’s too soon to talk about cleaning up snow banks.

Asked if town plows should have been out on roads earlier and longer last Thursday night before the storm — to get ahead of the large snowfall forecast — Lorenz said there was no sense sending workers out to clear roads too soon as it would have used up valuable town equipment operators’ work time on machines.

“Did we plan correctly? Yes we did.”

She said worker safety limitations only allow them so much time behind the wheel before they have to take a break.

The province is responsible for plowing Hwy. 11 and was aware of the forecast, she said. But could they have called in extra resources to make the highway safer and more navigable? Lorenz wouldn’t comment.

The mayor did say that today she asked the OPP and District of Muskoka to close four of their district side roads to allow crews to clear abandoned vehicles to gain more access to people stranded in homes without power and heat.

Muskoka District Roads: 13 (Southwood), 19 (Beiers), 20 (Uffington-Doe Lake) and 6 (Doe Lake-Housey’s Rapids-Cooper’s Falls) are now priorities. While some are down to one lane local traffic, a couple are still blocked after some transports detoured onto back roads went off the road causing more chaos.

Police say that in the first hours of Hwy. 11 opening there were already accidents.

Lorenz touched on concerns that the town is telling seasonal residents not to come to their cottage so as to allow plows to open roads.

“Give us another day for sure,” she said Tuesday, noting Hwy. 11 only opened at 10 p.m. last night. “Hopefully after tonight and tomorrow morning we’ll have a better idea.

“We’re asking everyone if it’s not in crucial to travel to Gravenhurst and the surrounding area just please give us a couple — one more day at least — so we can re-evaluate. It’s easier to clean up with less people travelling around the area.”

Help line 705-687-3412 ext. 2000

She said anyone in need of help can call the town office at 705-687-3412 ext. 2000 to request assistance of any kind, including food, by speaking to the Georgian Bay Volunteer Search and Rescue team answering those calls.

“Call that number and you can tell us what you need and we will get you what you need in order to get through the next few days,” said Lorenz.

“I realize some people don’t have access to social media. But we’ve done our best to get the message out that we’re here to help you. We have lots of people and there’s food. We’ve extracted some people from the southern part of the community who don’t have heat or hydro or food. And they’re going to be welcomed at the Centennial Centre and fed. So we’re trying to get to these people — and everybody is equally is important.

“But we need to know they need help. So if you have the opportunity call and tell us. Firefighters have been doing wellness checks on some of our most vulnerable people we know who are clients of the district. So we have been out there doing our best to reach these people.”

As of Tuesday just under 2,000 people, she said, are without power. Elexicon expects to fully resume its customer services by 4 p.m. Thursday.

As for side streets in the urban core of town, most are open to at least one lane access. The priority is those district side roads.

“We’ll put the push on them and then we’ll circle around and get the other ones in town open wider.”

When will emergency state be lifted?

It’s “hour to hour,” Lorenz said. “We will regroup in the morning.

“Because of the resources we’ve been provided from Vaughan, York Region and Simcoe County, it’s all hands on deck. We’ve got loads of equipment moving snow. So every time they do a blitz we get that much further. But it really is hour to hour.

“And things change. I mean the weight of the snow changes so they have to change the equipment they’re use. We know the blowers that were working perfectly during the night aren’t working during the day, because the snow is just too wet.

“It’s a science quite honestly. And where do they put all the snow? is a really valid question.

“What I hope is once we can get to where people can traverse the roads, I think that’s a fair time to say the emergency is lifted. But until we can safely say people can travel throughout the community we will keep it in place.”

When asked about the financial impact the storm will have, Lorenz said it would be part of the 2024 budget and not the 2025 budget currently being finalized.

Besides, she said, because of the town’s emergency declaration the province will be footing most of the bills for the extra resources.

“So no cost to the municipality.”

She added “because of our declaration the OPP were provided more resources to try and get those trucks off the highway. So a lot of these things, we don’t pay for them. The Emergency Management Ontario pays for them.”

She said: “The reason we called the emergency was the closure of the highway. The main artery through our town. A third of our population was cut off. So we couldn’t service any of those roads. And then we realized it was going to be days before we could get our plows down there and get people cleared — which only happened last night at 10 o’clock. So up until now we hadn’t been able to service that snow. We recognized that early and that that was going to be our biggest problem.

“And in the meantime we saw this unfolding, cars and big trucks were trying to go around the highway and they were going on roads that had two feet of snow or maybe more and were getting stuck. And we had no way to clear them because we couldn’t get to them. We knew that it was going to take time to get to them. So we’re thankful that finally the road was cleared and we can address those areas.

“And the resources we needed just didn’t make it here because of the highway was closed.”

Looking ahead to a forecasted follow-up storm of 30 cms Wednesday, does the town now in hindsight have new contingency plans for dealing with it?

“Yeah. We’re very capable of handling 10 cms or 20 cms of snow,” said the mayor. “I think if we have a really good handle on those four roads we mentioned; if they are in good shape we’re looking really good. And we only got access to those roads at 10 o’clock last night. So I am quite confident that once it’s business as usual, the cleanup of this original mess we can handle the snow.”

Lorenz quoted a meteorologist on the Weather Channel she heard before being interviewed as saying: “That town got two months of snow in two-and-a-half days.”

“We have had snow events before,” added Lorenz (most recently in 2022 for four of five days), and I have never seen this amount of snow in this short of time in my 27 years here. It’s a tremendous amount of snow.”

Further on the advance of the storm, Lorenz said “We’re not going to send plow guys out to work their eight hours when there’s not enough snow to clear and then when there’s enough snow to clear they can’t work because they have to be off x-amount of time.

“So did we plan correctly? Yes.

“I’d just want to reiterate this wouldn’t have been the significant event it was without that highway closure. It’s the main artery to our town. It is the way we can get to most of our district roads to clear them. So when you have five feet of snow fall on roads you literally can’t plow for all of that time — and people are trying drive on it and pack it down — that’s when we recognized it was going to be an emergency. And people would be stuck in their homes for a significant amount of time.

“It’s not just the snow that caused the problem.

“When was the last time … I can’t recall ever a highway being closed” this amount of time — from 11 a.m. Saturday to Monday at 10 p.m. “That’s unheard of. It just doesn’t happen. It exasperated everything.”

Did the town inform the province that closing the road would cut off a third of Gravenhurst residents?

Lorenz said “they did it because it was impassable. There were tractor-trailers all over it. It’s not that the province chose to close the road for no reason.

“We have to recognize that was the core problem of why it was closed. And then as a result of that people that may or may not have experience driving in the snow and vehicles that are way to big to be driving on some of these back roads got stuck and had to be rescued. We know what happened. But if the highway wasn’t closed, we wouldn’t be here today. That’s the message that I’d like to say. The highway being closed is the nucleus of this problem. Not the snow.”

S-NOTES:

OPP say GPS not always accurate in storm

The OPP remind the public that Hwy. 11 has reopened both directions between Orillia and Huntsville. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) may not provide accurate directions as there have been unpredictable road conditions and closures over the past few days. Housey’s Rapids Road, Uffington Road, Southwood Road and Beiers Road are closed. The northbound ramp at Luigi Road also remains closed at this time. Plan your trip before leaving by visiting the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) website for road conditions and closures at 511on.ca.

Some Gravenhurst schools open Wednesday.

In collaboration with the Town of Gravenhurst’s officials, TLDSB will be opening Gravenhurst High School + Adult and Alternate Education Centre (AAEC), Gravenhurst Public School, and Muskoka Beechgrove Public School tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 4 to provide students with a space to keep warm and be with their peers. But buses are not running. Parents/guardians who choose to send their children to school are responsible for transportation of their student(s) to and from school. Drop-off and pick-up must occur in alignment with the regular school day start and end times.

Child care centres at Gravenhurst Public School and Muskoka Beechgrove Public School will be open tomorrow, Wednesday, December 4.

K.P. Manson Public School will remain closed Wednesday.

At other TLDSB schools (Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes, City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, and Huntsville) schools are open to students and staff, and transportation is running as usual.

MNR water safety bulletin issued

The Ministry of Natural Resources — Bracebridge Minden Parry Sound District — is advising area residents that a Watershed Conditions Statement Water Safety Bulletin is in effect in the District until Tuesday, Dec. 10. This message will affect residents within the MNR Bracebridge Minden Parry Sound District for portions of the District Municipality of Muskoka in the Muskoka River Watershed. As a result of a recent winter storm, Lake Muskoka water levels are higher than normal at this time. Residents and visitors should exercise caution while around waterbodies and maintain close supervision of children and pets. Residents that have been affected by high water and flow conditions in the past should continue take necessary action to protect/secure any vulnerable property in proximity to rivers and lakes and closely monitor developing conditions and regularly check for updated messages. The ministry is closely monitoring the weather and developing watershed conditions.

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