Highway crews struggling to keep up with snowfall
Posted February 18, 2014 12:08 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WHISTLER (NEWS11300 – Crews are having trouble keeping the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla Highways clear, with more snowfall expected today.
Those stretches have been recently slammed with storm after storm.
In fact 15-30 cm of new snow will be coming down on the Coquihalla today, says Bob Gilowski with VSA Highway Maintenance.
“To put things into perspective, typically, for the month of February, the Coquihalla summit can receive, on average, about 160 cm. Right now, with just eight days since the storm track began, we are at 191 cm.”
The Sea-to-Sky was closed for several hours on Sunday night because of bad crashes and heavy snow.
Gilowski tells us crews have been working around the clock. “By the time February is over, I’m going to guess that we’ll have well over 200 cm of snowfall, which does exceed the average of 160 cm.”
“The driver’s in control of the safety aspect,” he adds. “By that, I mean the speed at which they choose travel on a winter road can make the decision whether to travel, whether to delay, or whether to use an alternate route.”
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