Edmonton's first big snowfall creates icy road conditions

Folks across Edmonton were met with a wintry surprise Wednesday morning. Snow covering the city for the first time of the season. But where there's snow, slippery roads follow. It's not a heavy, heavy snowfall, but it's enough to disrupt things for people and sort of really sort of complicate the commute for people up there. For most of the night Tuesday, the greater Edmonton area was slowly covered with snow, with temperatures staying cool enough to keep these snowflakes around. As Wednesday morning rolled around, icy roads plagued the city. It was just cool enough, if I can put it that way, that some of the road surfaces began to ice, especially as we compressed them down with vehicles moving over top of that slushy snow. So the road surfaces were cool enough that the ice began to form. According to Edmonton police, as of 11 Wednesday morning, they had responded to 43 separate collisions, from hit-and-runs and fender benders to crashes with injuries. The city's collision reporting centre say a total of 119 incidents have been reported as of 1 o'clock. In the past, the city would only bring in contracted resources once the snowfall would end. In the February snowfall, we brought in contracted resources as the snow was falling to make sure that we could more quickly respond to the conditions of our roads. And so that's a major shift going into this winter. To help combat these icy conditions, Edmonton say they've deployed crews of sand trucks across the city, starting with highways and bus routes, followed by collector and residential roads. Despite these efforts to respond to the snow, it seems this wintry weather will be short-lived. As we move into sort of Friday and then Saturday for Halloween, we're seeing a lot more sunshine. And that sunshine is really going to help, I think, to try to melt whatever's out there. So we'll probably have a bit of a slushy day today and tomorrow, and then improving conditions as we move through Friday, Saturday. RCMP are reminding Albertans to slow down on icy roads, drive for the conditions, and install winter tires as soon as possible. Tristan Mothershed, CBC News, Edmonton.