By Spencer Sterritt

Triple snow day ‘unprecedented’ in Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district

Feb 13, 2019 | 4:45 PM

NANAIMO — One snow day is fun and relatively common, two in a row is still fun but more rare but three school cancellations in a row is “unprecedented.”

The Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public School District confirmed all schools in the area have never been closed for three days before. The second-longest closure was for two days in 2004.

Director of communications Dale Burgos said staff, some of whom were students decades ago, couldn’t remember a snow event ever causing such widespread school cancellations.

Monday and Tuesday were filled with flurries but Wednesday, Feb. 13 was relatively calm and most roads were clear.

Despite the seemingly improved driving conditions, Burgos said the third school cancellation made sense.

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“The weather was great, the forecast was great but there’s still cars under snow and sidewalks you can’t navigate,” he said. “It isn’t safe for kids to be walking on the streets with traffic right there.”

Burgos said the district understood the difficulty and challenge presented to parents who couldn’t take time off work “but at the same time we wanted to make sure safety was paramount.”

The three snow days were a major boon for the school districts social media.

A video of superintendent Scott Saywell announcing the second snow day through song was seen more than 46,000 times in two days and they received hundreds of new followers on Twitter.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit