Bags of road salt hard to come by at some Montreal-area stores

The seemingly never-ending freeze-thaw cycles we've seen in the city has seen a lot of salt dumped onto streets, sidewalks, driveways, and just about anywhere else people can hurt themselves.

On the back end of yet another one of those cycles — the city went from 2°C early Monday morning after nearly a full day of rain, to a low of -10°C by the evening with a brutal wind chill — there's a big demand for road salt at hardware stores and other places.

And some places, it seems, aren't able to provide.

Several people on the West Island and off-island have gone to social media to report that several stores in their areas have run out of road salt — including big ones like the Costco in Pointe-Claire, and two nearby Walmart stores.

"First of all, I went to the Costco in Pointe-Claire, and there's none. I went to Walmart on St. John's, and Walmart on St. Charles...I've gone to many places in the last few days,"  says Luann, a caller to CJAD 800. "I've looked everywhere."

A quick survey of CJAD 800 listeners online, however, suggests bags of road salt might be hard to find in places like Dorval, LaSalle, NDG, Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Deux-Montagnes as well.

Many who can't find road salt are resorting to cat litter — "does the same thing and is easier to find," wrote one poster to CJAD 800's Facebook page — and other methods of keeping their sidewalks passable.

"Went old school with one metal shovel and an icepick," wrote another poster.

A spokesperson for Canadian Tire, meanwhile, tells CJAD 800 that while there's no doubt that road salt has been a hot commodity this winter, but that shipments arrive at their stores every day.

And a spokesperson from the City of Montreal says they don't expect to run out of the stuff anytime soon.