New Brunswickers were cleaning up Thursday after Wednesday’s first blast of winter, and some say not enough effort was made to plow roads.

However, the province says it's providing the same level of service as last year.The first snow storm of the season hit the Maritimes Wednesday. CBC

Carter Laing, who lives on the western part of Route 845 on the Kingston Peninsula, said snow clearing in his area had always been good, but things changed with Wednesday's snowfall.

"With my wife … she got home around six o'clock and the snow was quite deep," Laing said. "There was no plow service ... and then when I came home at nine o'clock, it was even a little bit worse, but still no plow service and cars off the road."

Laing said when he left for work at 5 a.m. Thursday, the road still wasn't plowed.

He said some parts of Route 845 were cleared, but others were left untouched and he wondered if that was due to cutbacks.

"What makes the difference between one part and the other part that we can't have plowed? Why does it take 24 to 30 hours to get it plowed?” he questioned.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said provincial plow operators go by a chart which determines how busy the roads are and how much snow must fall before the plow is sent out, and that's not a new practice.

Snow removal cutbacks

The storm was also the first real test of Saint John's plan to keep streets clear this winter following budget cuts.

About 20 centimetres of snow in Saint John, one of the harder hit areas in New Brunswick, left a big impact on the roads.

Kevin Rice, deputy commissioner of municipal operations, said the city crews will have a difficult time meeting their usual snow removal targets this year because of cutbacks.

“What this last winter is telling us is that with our existing resources, we were not able to meet our objectives to plow the existing inventory of sidewalks that we committed to,” said Rice.Many New Brunswick children welcomed Wednesday's storm as they got the day off school. CBC

“With a reduction in equipment we would expect to see those service objectives not being met more times than not."

In order to meet budget constraints, Saint John city council voted that seven pieces of snow equipment had to be removed from the fleet.

Dustin Bowers, a carpenter working in Saint John, said the storm shows that the people of Saint John are going to feel the budget cuts this winter.

“Twenty three jobs cut and you really expect that there is no change to service? Well our last snowfall just showed what happened,” Bowers said.

“I mean, most of the roads in the city are still not plowed. It's impossible to get anywhere, move anywhere, yeah it's the first snow, but if you are going to cut jobs you’re cutting service, and there is a problem with that."

Storm stress

Thousands of New Brunswick children had the day off school Wednesday or were sent home.

The storm also caused flight cancellations and Saint John police counted more than 60 accidents by the time the storm blew past.Fire departments in N.B. received calls from people who had chest pain from shovelling. CBC

In the Kennebecasis Valley, police reported just a handful of accidents Wednesday.

The storm also kept firefighters busy by responding to calls of chest pains and difficulty breathing.

Many of those calls came from people shovelling their driveway.