As the snow melts, the signs of winter are still everywhere.

All around Lambton County you can find road signs bent over or snapped off after a very long winter of snow ploughing.

Jim Kutyba, general manager of infrastructure in Lambton, says as county road crews tried to push the huge mounds of snow back during the long cold winter, many signs and more than a few mailboxes became casualties. “A lot of them get whacked because of the snow we’re pushing back to push the drifts back,” says Kutyba.

“There is a lot of snow that has drifted a lot…They’ve tried to knock that back to reduce the drift…they’re out on the road a lot more (this year) and sometime they do hit them,” he adds.

Kutyba says work crews have been repairing some of the signs – particularly those that are regulatory signs such as stop and yield signs that must be repaired. “You don’t want a stop sign or a speed limit sign missing.”

But it’s not always easy. Kutyba says the signs with steel poles can sometimes be driven back into the ground, but the signs with wooden poles may have to wait until the ground thaws. “I noticed a few signs leaning over, they’ll just stay until the snow goes but there is a lot of frost in the ground and that is an issue.”

As for those mailboxes, Kutyba says the rule of thumb is if the snow has knocked it off its platform the homeowner must repair it. “but if there is evidence we’ve whacked it with the wing, we’ll replace it,” says Kutyba.

The county set aside about $207,000 to replace signs in 2014, a budget which must not only replace this winter’s damage but signs which no longer meet Ministry of Transportation standards.