Highway 16 closed to Terrace

Monday's wild weather has resulted in the closure of Highway 16 between Terrace and Prince Rupert, at 915 pm, Drive BC listed the highway as closed in both directions from Prince Rupert to Rainbow Pass due to a high avalanche risk.

The closure is in effect until at least 11 am on Tuesday, with an update expected to be provided at 10 am.

Through the day travel advisories had been posted along the highway due to heavy snowfall inland, with no travel recommended unless absolutely necessary.

The Drive BC advisories were as follows:

Highway 16 both directions

Closed in both directions from Prince Rupert to Rainbow Pass (15.8 km) because of High Avalanche Hazard. Will remain closed until 11 am Tuesday, January 27; confidence moderate. Next update Tuesday, Jan 27 at 10:00 am. Updated on Mon Jan 26 at 9:15 pm. (ID# 75489)

Jan 26, 2009 09:15 PM

Highway 16 Both Directions

Heavy Snowfall from Agate Creek Bridge to Terrace (93.6 km). Travel Advisory in effect. Travel is not recommended unless absolutely necessary. Updated Mon Jan 26 at 6:58 pm. (ID# 75449)

Jan 26, 2009 06:58 PM

Highway 16 Both Directions

Heavy Snowfall from Terrace to Big Oliver Creek Bridge (49.4 km). Travel Advisory in effect. Travel is not recommended unless absolutely necessary. Updated Mon Jan 26 at 6:50 pm. (ID# 75448)

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UPDATE: The latest advisory from Drive BC had the highway reopened late Tuesday afternoon, however with an advisory of a High Avalanche Hazard 34 km east of Agate Creek Bridge to 55 km west of Terrace (4.6 km).

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The Drive BC website will have updates posted in the morning regarding the status of highway conditions.

Highway 16 closed at two locations

Any trips to Terrace and beyond by road will have to be deferred for the time being, Drive BC has listed the highway as closed as an avalanches and a mudslide has closed the highway for travel at least until Tuesday sometime if not a little longer.

Heavy rain has brought a debris field across the road and railroad tracks west of Terrace around the Salvus area, while a mudslide past the Rainbow summit area has also resulted in debris to cut across the road necessitating the closure of the highway overnight and into Tuesday as work crews get first look at the situation at first light on Tuesday.

Roads into the Nass and up to Telegraph Creek were also closed today due to slides and flooding concerns.

The prospect of road closures is not an uncommon occurrence at this time of the year, whether it be from heavy rains roaring in from the Pacific or heavy snows in the interior sections of the North Coast highway district along the Skeena River.

The Drive BC website features updated information through the day, you can check out the status of Highway 16 and other Northwest roads here.

CBC News-- B.C. highways open, close in wake of weather-related problems

CFTK News-- Several Northwest Highways Closed

Terrace Standard-- Avalanches close Highways

Terrace Daily Online-- Flooding at Gingolx

Terrace Daily Online-- Closed Highways everywhere now

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Update: As of 3oopm on Tuesday, Jan 13 There were no closures listed on the website for Highway 16

Update: As of 1230 on Tuesday, Jan 13 Highway 16 was still listed as closed.

And then the lights go out

Throughout Sunday afternoon the lights had flickered occasionally across the city, but at 5:11 pm a wide swath of downtown Prince Rupert was thrown into darkness as a widespread power failure occurred in the downtown core.

The BC Hydro reporting map outlines a stretch of the downtown area from McBride Street to just past 11th street as in the dark, also affected by the main power outage was an area from the waterfront to 7th Avenue West, power was expected to return by 9 pm.
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In a separate outage, a small patch of Atlin Avenue further west where the power went out a close to 6 pm and won't be back on until 11 pm.

Hydro has listed the cause of the downtown power outage as under investigation thus far.

The power outages are just one of many inconveniences that the wind and rain have brought to north coast residents this Sunday, cellular service for Rogers customers has been disrupted all day long, with many theories offered up so far, but few concrete facts as to why the Rogers network has failed.

There were scattered reports of Internet problems through the CityWest system as well, though from all accounts their cel service has remained available through the day.

And for those seeking to travel the highway to the east, plans will have to be put on hold for the near future, the Highways Department closed Highway 16 at Agate creek on Sunday afternoon, as an avalanche hazard was considered too high for travel and extreme weather conditions made driving along the road dangerous as well. Some reports have it that the road won't be re-opened until at least noon on Monday.

Traffic around the city was hampered by large pools of water accumulating in a number of areas, as storm drains clogged and covered by the two weeks of snow couldn't handle the volume of melting snow and rain that began early Sunday morning. Some areas of the city featured large lakes of sorts slowing traffic to a crawl in order to navigate the standing water.

You can find the latest details on some of these troubles through a number of sources.

BC Hydro features a website update site, which includes maps of outages across the province, look over the latest details here.

Drive BC also has a website which offers updates on the troubled areas as well as highway camera views of weather conditions along Highway 16, you can check it out here.

Updates:

Jan 5 3:18 pn Ministry of Highways re-opens Highway 16
Jan 5 10:30 am Highway 16 to remain closed until at least noon today
Jan 4: 7:50 pm Power is reported to have returned to the downtown area at 7:30 this evening

We can't get there from here (for now anyways)

If travelling past Terrace along Highway 16 is on your Thursday agenda, you may have to make other plans as the Ministry of Highways has closed the east west transportation route through the night and into tomorrow.

The Drive BC website offered up the following explanation for the closure of the Yellowhead just east of Terrace on Thursday.

Highway 16 is currently closed due to rock fall debris on the roads and potential further rock instability 30km west of Kitwanga. Geotechnical engineers will be assessing the area at first light to ensure it is safe for our staff to clear the debris. An up-date on the situation will be available by 9 am tomorrow morning. Travellers are asked for patience as our experts work to re-establish traffic on Highway 16. Currently there is no detour in effect. Updated on Wed Nov 26 at 9:56 pm. (ID# 69379)

They won't have an idea as to how long the closure will be in effect until daylight arrives and they can get a better understanding of what has happened and how long it will take to clean it up.

You can check the Drive BC website for updates on the closure and other highway conditions.

Highway 16 closed between Terrace and Prince Rupert

As of 2 pm, Highway 16 was still closed to traffic east of Prince Rupert and west of Terrace due to a threat of avalanche along the route.

The Drive BC website had listed as with high confidence a reopening time of 2 pm, but the avalanche gates to the east of the city remained closed as of 2 pm.

Highway 37A in the Stewart area has also been closed due to the threat of avalanches.

Troubles extended to the Queen Charlottes as freezing rain had also closed Highway 16 between Skidegate and Masset for a while.

Update: The Terrace Standard posted an advisory on its webpage at 2:25 today

Road to open at 2:45 p.m.
Terrace Standard
February 7, 2008

THE ROAD to Prince Rupert is expected to open at 2:45 p.m. following an intensive period of work to eliminate avalanche hazards.

It has been closed since yesterday.

Aside from transportation ministry and CN avalanche experts at the location, Nechako Northcoast road maintenance crews are now on scene clearing snow that had fallen overnight.
“We’ve had about 25 centimetres of snow out there since last night so we’ll need a couple of hours to clean it up,” said Peter Lansdowne from Nechako Northcoast, the area’s road maintenance company, earlier today.

He estimated crews cleared approximately 20km of highway once the all clear from avalanche experts had been given.

As it is, Nechako crews have been dealing with several smaller avalanches at Exchamsiks, which is on the Terrace side of the larger avalanche threat.

Meanwhile, the road to Stewart remains closed because of an avalanche hazard along that route.
Traffic along Hwy37 North was halted last night after being opened for a period of time after an earlier closure