How do snow towns cope with so much snow?

[HoTRoD 2]

I was just looking at the most snow in 1 night thread and thought this might be interesting to hear from any of you guys living out in the snow country.

 

If like there's a meter of snow overnight, how do the towns cope with that? Surely the're prepared and all for lots of snow, but what happens when there's just too much of the stuff falling down?

 

Thanks

rod

[Ocean11 0]

Suwa is not snow country by any means, but when it snows lots here, it just stays on the ground for months on end. One year they sent a back hoe to chip away at the snow that had set like concrete in a 10 cm layer on our road. They averaged about 2 meters a day (I coulda gone fasta with just a shovel!)

 

The city office makes announcements asking residents not to throw snow in drains and rivers, but there's nowhere else to throw it. I'm always impressed by those [censored] who shovel their snow onto the road in freezing temperatures expecting it to disappear under the cars - it doesn't.

 

In cities like Sapporo, in bad (good!) years, they have convoys of trucks carrying snow out to artificial snow mountains in the suburbs. Sometimes the trucks slip off the mountain they've created. In lots of places, they pile up the snow on school playing fields.

 

Heavy snow is a good opportunity for salarymen to have some time off, but most still seem to slog into work, usually having dinged their backs shovelling snow first, the only exercise they get for a whole year.

[Ski Japan Guide 0]

Rod,

 

Even with huge amounts of snow, you'll find that the main snow resort towns cope really well. After all, it's their biggest and most important time of year so they need to keep access open to get everyone on the slopes.

 

Towns have, as Ocean11 said, convoys of all sorts of huge snow removing and distributing vehicles.

 

Other towns have sprinklers in the middle of roads that are turned on before a big snowfall to try to keep the roads clear.

 

When there is a major heavy snowfall that continues for a day or more, things do slow down and get very dangerous but for the most part they cope with it all remarkably well.

[miteyak 0]

being from ol' blighty, we dream of snow bringing things to a halt, but here it just doesn't seem to happen. Been in one of Hakubas famed 36 hour falls, but all's cleared by the 37th.

 

Public works-the Japanese countryside is full of them. And guess what? This huge workforce/machinery stockpile/Ricardian dole reserve has a hard time laying concrete on snow covered mountains.

 

Hmm...guess what they do instead

[rach 1]

By rubbing their hands in glee.