This is what Ontario’s snowstorm was like for one Toronto snow plow operator

One snow plow operator said he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since heaps of snow began to plummet onto Toronto’s streets Sunday night.

“Four hours one night and another four this morning,'' Larry Richards, president of East-West Disposal Services Co. Ltd., told CTV News Toronto.

While Richards saw the forecast for the city a week in advance, the amount of snow was difficult to judge until it arrived. Then, overnight, “boom,” Richards said, describing the sudden snowfall.

“It’s something a snow plow [operator] has to deal with,” Richards said. “The uncertainty.”

On Monday morning at 3 a.m., Richards drove out onto the snow blanketed city as the forecast escalated from five centimeters to a full blown blizzard, accumulating to nearly 60 centimetres of snow in Toronto.

“It came down too fast,” he said.

By around 5 a.m., before the sun rose, Richards said he had zero visibility on the roads. Meanwhile, he watched pedestrians venture onto the streets to find pathways to walk on and 20 streetcars lined-up lodged in the snow on King Street.

Now, three days since the onset of the historic storm, Richards still sees weeks of work ahead.

“It’s not melting,” he said. “It’s not going away.”

As a solution, he has been collecting and carrying snow to an empty yard where a pile has mounted. But, even when the snow is primarily out of sight in the city, Richards said, “There are a lot of hidden issues.”

“What happens when it starts to melt?” he said. “Flooding.”

For the time being, clearing the snow is the priority. After that, “ you gotta wait and see what mother nature leaves behind,” he said.