The City of Montreal has asked its teams to prioritize de-icing the city’s sidewalks in the final days, even if it means loading the snow takes longer. A record number of falls was recorded on Thursday last week.
It was the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, who said this on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a press conference held in the city’s downtown core.
“Since the beginning, we have continued to have constant communications with the 19 boroughs so that this is the priority,” said the mayor. “So much so that, during the weekend, we asked to slow down snow removal operations if that would allow more teams to be on the sidewalks,” she added. She was referring to snow loading operations.
“Every time someone falls and gets hurt, it’s one person too many. For the City of Montreal, sidewalks are always the priority,” continued the Mayor of Montreal. “We see it: in certain districts things are going very well, the number of falls has decreased. »
All this comes as Urgences-Santé has reported more than 1,400 calls related to falls on Montreal’s icy sidewalks since last week, a “record” according to the ambulance organization.
“It was a peak in terms of assignment volume for us. We had to put in place response plan protocols because we were facing abnormally high demand, in order to prevent it from having an impact on urgent calls. On the other hand, inevitably, it was felt on non-urgent calls,” explains the spokesperson for Urgences-Santé, François Rouleau on this subject.
He maintains that the number of calls has since “returned to more normal values, i.e. a number of calls which fluctuates between 900 and 1000 per 24-hour period”. “We are far from what we experienced on January 11, even if it is still a little higher than usual. But we come back to figures that are within the norms,” says Mr. Rouleau.
In the longer term, the spokesperson does not hide the fact that the climate crisis represents a major challenge for ambulance workers. “Whether we’re talking about extreme heat, heat islands or more abundant ice with climate change, it always represents a challenge for stakeholders, who also work in conditions that are not easy. This makes the service more difficult to provide,” he notes.
“What is certain is that we will always adjust our staffing level according to what we anticipate, so we are continually preparing for it,” concludes François Rouleau.