GRANDE-GREVE - Following a historic snowfall that dumped up to 120 centimetres on some parts of Richmond County, the area's municipal leader is urging residents to remain patient and proceed with caution. 

During a 72-hour stretch that began on Friday, February 2 and didn't let up until Monday, February 4, Nova Scotia received its heaviest snowfall in two decades, bringing daily life to a standstill around the province's northeastern counties and Cape Breton Island. 

However, while the neighbouring Cape Breton Regional Municipality immediately launched a local state of emergency that is still in effect eight days later, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette insisted that no such course of action was required for Richmond County. The warden noted that the majority of the CBRM's roads and streets are municipally owned as opposed to provincially run, as compared to Richmond County, where crews with Nova Scotia's Department of Public Works oversaw snow-clearing operations. 

For example, she pointed to the West Bay Highway, which connects communities such as Dundee, St. George's Channel, The Points-West Bay and Roberta along the Bras d'Or Lake coastline in the county's north end. This road remained clogged for 24 hours after the snow stopped falling, and a DPW effort to quickly clear the area was hampered when a special snowblower brought in for the operation broke down on its first day of use. However, additional equipment allowed the local DPW crews to clear West Bay Highway by February 6. 

At the same time, Mombourquette noted that the municipality has sent requests to Nova Scotia's Emergency Management Office (EMO) to request further assistance in such communities as L'Ardoise, Framboise and Forchu, which are found in the county's east end. 

In the meantime, as she prepares for Monday's meeting of Richmond County's Committee of the Whole, Warden Mombourquette is casting a cautious eye on the weather forecast for the coming week, which could see an additional 20-30 centimetres of snow hit the Strait Area. 

"We're keeping our fingers crossed,"  Mombourquette told Telile LJI journalist Adam Cooke.