As nasty weather ripped through Southern Alberta this past week, crews have had to work hard clearing snow from the highways.

Road closures shut down part of the British Columbia and Alberta border just earlier this week.

Volker Stevin is responsible for the road work here, from plowing, grating and scraping the roads, the employees work day and night, dependent on the weather conditions and upcoming weather.

As foreman, Tony Nelson knows that the safety of those travelling is important, which is why the guys try to stay well rested when they know Lethbridge is in for snowy weather.

“Either very early in the morning or late at night, we basically just react to the weather conditions… Either a half inch of snow or slippery conditions, our trucks are out,” said Nelson.

With the mass amounts of snow seen in the recent days, crews often need to hit the roads multiple times to ensure the snow is off.

The area covered by Volker Stevin is from Calgary down, and from border to border.

Mike Philip is an employee of Volker Stevin who believes that getting the snow off of the shoulders is one of the more important aspects of snow removal.

“The big deal for us it to get it off of the side of the road, off of the shoulders. You’ll notice and this year we’ve had so much snow we’ve had to push a lot of it off into the ditches. So that’s a big one for us, is getting it away so we don’t have the drifting and blowing snow after the fact,” said Philip.

Although the amount of snow that we see differs from year to year, Volker Stevin likes to get the guys comfortable with their routes.

This way employees can learn the hazards of the roads and know how to avoid them.

“Most guys are assigned a certain road and a truck, but again it’s the way the weather comes in,” said Nelson.

Even in the summer months, Volker Stevin works on road maintenance here in Southern Alberta, painting roads, sealing cracks in the pavement and ensuring the highways are safe for all to travel.