For each storm with considerable snowfall, residents of Erin Ridge Drive shovel two or three times so that the snow is not so difficult to remove.
Before it melts to the cement to become heavy, we try to lessen the stress on both shovels and backs. But after all that work, the City of St. Albert sends graders that shovel gigantic, heavy chunks of snow-ice that cover our driveways.
After breaking several shovels last year, this year I phoned the city to ask them to return to bringing out the small graders to clear the driveways from the ice-chunks left by the graders.
Next day, the city responded but still did an incompetent job. Large ice-chunks remained on the driveway and the driveway was reduced in size by more than a foot by an ice-chunk mound.
Still unable to drive over it without the ice-chunks causing damage to the underside of my SUV, I had no choice but to bend another shovel to rat-dung to remove the work of the graders from my driveway over two days.
With the size of my driveway somewhat restored to its original size, I then had to change out of wet clothes. My clothes became soaked after using considerable muscle power to remove the ice-chunks.
Removing snowfall from storms is an easy task, but removing ice-chunks from driveways after city graders mow the street requires heavy steel and machines residents lack, even after the city responds to complaints.
Randy B. Williams, St. Albert
