Highway travel trickles eastward

We continue on with the catch up work with a review of Friday’s headline story, the re-opening of Highway 16 to traffic at Legate Creek, a small window of opportunity to move eastward from Terrace.

CARS EDGING PAST MASSIVE SLIDE THAT CLOSED HIGHWAY
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, June 01, 2007

Traffic began trickling, one lane at a time, through the muddy remains of the slide near Legate Creek this morning.

The Ministry of Highways has cleared one lane and has set specific times during the day when traffic will be allowed along Highway 16.

Openings for single-lane alternating traffic began with the first opening from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. this morning, followed by a planned opening from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and again tonight from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. The Highway will be closed at night until further notice.

"Stay tuned to DriveBC.ca because we are making a concerted effort to keep that updated in a timely way," said Don Ramsay, area manager for the Ministry of Highways.

Since the slide, there have been many subsequent pulses of material coming down the mountain.

"That has caused us great concern for the safety of our workers and has slowed some of our clearing operations."

And the debris that covered 150 feet of road, 40 feet deep has also moved since Monday because of the water in it.

"It's very wet, there are literally small rivers running through it and on the surface," said Ramsay.

"It has created some problems for drainage and has blocked some culverts with smallish rocks filling up the culverts that have had to be cleared out. We have had some real challenges over the last couple of days."

Each morning at first light, the ministry is sending up an engineer by helipcopter to assess the slope.

"When you see it, you realize it was a phenomenal slide. The whole side of the mountain came down," he said.

"Any time there is any risk of any additional debris coming down, we will have a spotter in place and we will be maintaining very guarded traffic through there. Even when we get two lanes open, it will be controlled traffic with communications from the spotter from above."

Some of the debris is being pushed onto the right-of-way but most is being sent to an old gravel pit used during the construction of Highway 16.

"It was been returned to Crown Land many years ago and we have had it assigned by Crown Land for this use," said Ramsay.

He said drivers should feel comfortable driving through the area.

"People should be confident. There are many precautions in place but I would advise people not to dilly-dally and certainly not to stop to look at the slide and also not to drive too fast - just drive at a safe speed for the conditions," he said.

After clearing the highway, the next step will be to install berms and catchment areas on the mountainside to protect the highway from further slides.

However, this cannot occur until the slide has dried out enough to get an excavator on top of the pile.

Ramsay added that crews from Nechako Road Maintenance and a number of Northwest contractors deserve a pat on the back for the long hours they have been working to get the highway open again.

Much of the commercial traffic coming in and out of the region in the past week has been using the Cranberry Connector. However, this forestry service road adds a four-hour detour and is not meant for general traffic.

The Cranberry Connector is a logging road that connects New Aiyansh to Highway 37 North, just south of Meziadin Junction.

New Democrat MLAs Gary Coons and Robin Austin said this week they feel it is time for the province to upgrade the Cranberry Connector.

"This stretch of Highway 16 is the only road connecting the communities of Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert to the rest of the province," said Coons, the MLA for the North Coast.

"These communities are cut-off for days when a slide, like the one on Monday, happens. It is unacceptable that the province doesn't see the necessity of another route into these communities.

However, Transportation Minister, Kevin Falcon, has said that the province has no plans to upgrade the Cranberry Connector because of the cost.