major blizzard is slamming the region and as you can see there's very little

visibility on the roads due to all that blowing snow, the forecast suggests these

treacherous conditions won't be letting up anytime soon the CBC's Kayla Hansell

is braving the outdoors for us today as she has been all morning she joins us

live from St. John's, Kayla thanks for being there for us what is the situation

there like right now? Hi John well as you said the mayor of St. John's has

declared a state of that of emergency, that state of emergency is in effect

immediately and until further notice and what that means is that all businesses

have been ordered to shut down all vehicles other than emergency vehicles

have been ordered off the roads so in that statement from the city of St.

John's they actually say no vehicles are permitted to use city streets, plows will

continue but otherwise the city of st. John's urging people stay home,

do not drive until this state of emergency has been lifted I mean you can

see the conditions it is a complete blizzard whiteout situation has been

progressively getting worse throughout the morning which is as it was forecast

to do. The snow is coming down very heavy very quickly, the wind has been

intensifying all morning long I mean it's just the kind that's hitting you in

the face as I'm here trying to speak to you you can

probably hear it's taking my breath away a little bit so that you know our

situation the CBC has also pulled all of its crews off the road so we're just

here at our hotel just outside of our hotel to bring you this story in the

safest way possible. Again the city is shut down, schools were closed, city buses

were pulled off the roads long before the state of emergency went into effect

government buildings also closed for the day, of course ferry service has been

stopped and flights grounded. Air Canada sent extra flights in last night to get

people out ahead of the storm but if you didn't manage to get out it looks like

we're gonna be here for a while officials really asking for patience

urging people to understand that this is not just this one very bad storm which

is very bad a nasty one even by

Newfoundland standards but that there have been multiple storms one on top of

another very recently which means they haven't been able to get ahead of the

snow clearing so this is gonna take some time certainly throughout the weekend

even after this weather stops which is supposed to continue into tomorrow at

least but really looking at at least Monday before this province is back up

and running John. Thanks for this Kayla CBC's Kayla Hansel in St. John's

Newfoundland well for more on how the city is coping we are joined now by a

man who's very busy and we appreciate his time today the mayor of St. John's

Danny Breen thanks for joining us sir, as Kayla was saying you've just declared a

state of emergency in your city, why did you do that?

well this is a very unique situation that we have we had a tremendous amount

of snow underground we had about 170 centimeters because we had back-to-back

storms and and snowfalls we weren't able to get the amount of removal and

pushback and widening of streets done that that we normally would have had

done in sidewalk clearing, so we have a situation with 70 centimeters of snow

coming it was just going to be it's going to have a tremendous cleanup and

the top of that the combination of a heavy snow and a the rate of snow

along with very high wind levels add a level of danger to this that we wanted

to make sure that we that we just were able to to keep the emergency routes

open, do as much plowing and clearing of sidewalks of streets that we could and

and be able to to clean up after the after the storm.

You mentioned the element of danger what is the message that you want your

residents to hear loud and clear with you imposing the state of emergency? We

want everybody to stay home, we want everybody to stay safe we if you have

neighbors that you know that may need some assistance reach out to them if you

can just to make sure everything is okay and we just want to be able to to to

weather the storms so to speak. The one of the things that the wind levels are

going to be increasing and with that there's always a concern for power

outages and those things so the city has our staff our necessary staff on standby

to deal with any of the further actions that may happen as a result of this

storm. Just to not put too fine a point on it but that person who says you know

what I just want to get some milk I just want to get some eggs I'm just going to

the store it's just around the corner what would you advise that person to do

who might be thinking of taking a calculated risk under these

circumstances? I would advise them to stay home because those uh the state of

emergency order is closing all businesses in the city so they they're

not going to be able to to go to the store they're not going to be able to go

out to to do any of those things additionally if they just decide that

they want to go out I would strongly recommend they stay at home, the winds

are going to be high the visibility is very poor is just better for everyone

and safer if people just stay at home and wait for the storm to

subside. Have you had a chance to gauge how people are feeling about all this,

what are you hearing from them and what are their concerns with this storm? Well

it's really it's you know it we're used to having snow or where we're not used

to having this much snow this early and where we're certainly not used to having

a combination of seventy centimeters of snow and very high winds so, people

understand they they understand what's what the what the challenge is there but

still there's going to be a very very significant cleanup not only for the

city but for private businesses and for private homeowners into the next few

days so this is this is a major storm and people are very concerned about it.

You say the next few days and I understand that the state of emergency

is in effect until further notice, how long do you think folks are going to

have to hunker down? I have no idea right now it depends when the storm subsides

and on how much snow is on the ground when

were when were completed and how we can get the city open again but we we will

have it in place until we're satisfied that we can return to normal operations

here. So worth emphasizing even though it may have stopped snowing in a day or two

it could be several more days as I understand what you're saying before

streets are safe for people to go out again. We are going to take whatever time

we need here to to make sure that the streets are opened and that we're able

to get back to normal operations. Mayor Breen I understand of course you're a

busy man these days thanks for taking the time out to talk to us, best of luck

with you and your community and we'll be staying in touch throughout the weekend.

Appreciate it thank you very much, okay all the best Mayor Danny Breen speaking

to us live from St. John's Newfoundland