Pictou County, N.S., council mulls local state of emergency

Pictou County Warden Robert Parker says council will meet Wednesday night and discuss if they should call a local state of emergency, as some residents are still trapped at home from the heavy snowstorm that blanketed the Nova Scotia municipality.

Parker says council considered calling a local of state of emergency this weekend but at that time it wouldn’t have brought in more clean up equipment.

“If we decide that that is going to help us some, then fine,” said Parker. “But we couldn’t see anything that a state of emergency will do that we aren’t doing now. It won’t bring in more equipment, the province is already helping and doing that.”

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality declared a state of local emergency over the weekend in response to the heavy snowfall.

Parker says the main concern is the safety for residents, especially rural residents who are still blocked in from the snow and getting their roads and entry points cleared.

“Those roads are blocked so deeply that it’s going to take awhile to get to somebody, and that is our biggest fear in the case of emergency,” said Parker. “But we also feel for all of those people who have been just plain locked in for this long.”

Parker said in terms of emergency calls, plows and snow removal equipment have been used to escort ambulances to some cut off areas by snow.

Everett Murrell has been trapped on his Pictou County property for five days because of the snow.

It took Murrell, a senior who has a respiratory disease, two days to shovel a path by hand to his garage where he could get his snowblower running.

Murrel finally broke a pathway through from his laneway to the road and it feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

“Before that I had no way out,” said Murrell. “If you know that you can’t reach the road or outside for help, it eats at you.”

Troy Webb, the province’s public works director for the area, says progress is being made and confirmed more equipment is coming in.

“We’ve gotten a lot of support from the private sector and they have helped us out a lot with additional gear,” said Webb. “We’ve also got help from our neighbours in New Brunswick, they have sent down three of their plow trucks for their highway systems.”

Parker says the province brought in 10 snowmobiles on Wednesday to assist with bringing supplies to those residents who are still cut off from access to roads.

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