Lethbridge City Hall is pictured on January 22, 2024. City of Lethbridge crews were kept busy during the recent extreme cold snap. (Photo: LNN)

By Justin Goulet

Lethbridge crews kept busy tackling issues caused by extreme cold

Jan 22, 2024 | 3:48 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The recent cold snap in Alberta kept City of Lethbridge crews busy last week.

Staff with the Infrastructure Services department worked hard over several days of frigid temperatures to maintain the operation of services and facilities in Lethbridge.

Joel Sanchez, Director of Infrastructure said, “The sustained low temperatures were challenging for machinery, infrastructure and our staff to keep things moving in the timely way residents and businesses have come to expect from the City.”

Sanchez noted that with colder weather, effects can be seen above ground, but impacts are felt underground as well, with freezing resulting in watermain breaks.

He said, “For the last 10 days, we had four watermain breaks across the city, mostly in the older regions.”

Nighttime construction on Hwy 3 in Lethbridge starts April 17

Apr 17, 2025

SASHA launches #BuyABed fundraiser to support vulnerable Lethbridge residents

Apr 04, 2025

$20K grants available: TELUS STORYHIVE Pan-Asian Edition opens applications April 1

Mar 18, 2025

Although warming conditions are welcomed by residents, the rise in temperature can influence City infrastructure, with ground frost listed as a factor in infrastructure damage across the province. Sanchez noted that moisture in the ground expands when it freezes, and when the water begins to thaw as the weather heats up, the ground sinks to fill that space.

That damage is noticeable on roadways in the form of frost heaves in the winter and potholes in the spring. The moving ground can damage roads, bridges and buildings. Because this process happens underground, it can also impact water services and watermains.

Sanchez remarked, “We’re going to most likely see an increase this spring of potholes in the road and that’s why were trying to get ahead. Our departments are working with different technology that we can actually put in place in order to assess and try to get to those sooner than [later].”

He said in total, Lethbridge 311 fielded more than 340 calls relating to the cold weather. The City provided an overview of how that translated into numbers for the Infrastructure Services department:

• Transportation Operations: crew members plowed and sanded over 340 kilometres of roadway, as many as eight times, in the case of main arterials, throughout the city. Snow plow teams work 24 hours, seven days a week when the snow is falling.
• Water & Wastewater attended four watermain breaks. This resulted in more than 400 hours of staff time in repairs. The City said crews worked over weekends and into the late hours to make sure the disruption to residents was as minimal as possible.
• Electric saw its team put in an addition 54 hours of work to implement the provincially mandated grid alerts and trigger the City’s emergency plan to prepare for rolling blackouts.
• Fleet and Transit technician teams attended over 100 emergency requests to perform repairs on City vehicles, including snow plows, garbage collection trucks, fire and police vehicles. This led to more than 260 hours of staff time boosting vehicles, repairing breakdowns and fixing fueling challenges. Transit also assisted in coordinating the clearing of more than 450 bus stops of snow to allow residents better access to their stop.
• Facilities had more than 60 extreme weather-related emergency requests come through the cold snap with over 155 hours of staff time put in to get facilities back online in the cold.

Sanchez thanked residents for their response to a particularly cold night, when a provincial grid alert was issued on January 13, 2024.

READ MORE: Grid alert issued, Albertans asked to conserve energy

He said, “I can actually say that after that emergency alert, residents did their job.”

“We saw a reduction of close to six megawatts in the City consumption, which again, that’s what we wanted to do and we were able to avoid going to the next steps, which could mean power outages across the city that would need to be rotated in order to preserve the [power] grid.”

A second brief grid alert was issued on January 15.

READ MORE: Another grid alert issued in Alberta Monday

Residents can find out more information regarding power outages and road projects in Lethbridge at the City website.

READ MORE: Lethbridge News Now.

—

If you have a news tip, question or concern, please email Lethbridge.newsroom@Pattisonmedia.com.