A reprieve from last week’s excitement

The Daily News recaps the weekend developments on the flood front with a review of events from Friday til press time on Monday.

FLOODS EASE, HIGHWAY NO LONGER ‘ROAD TO NOWHERE’
Highway 16 is open again to Terrace and beyond as meltwater slows
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Monday, June 11, 2007
Pages one and three

The raging waters fell, the highways re-opened to one-way traffic, and displaced people in the Northwest returned to their homes, following a drop in river levels this weekend.

However, 60 per cent of the snow pack still remains on the mountains and river levels could rise again if there is a streak of hot weather or heavy rainfall, cautioned John Les, the province’s public safety minister, from Terrace Saturday.

“This still might not be over yet and while we want to move on and get beyond this, let’s just be mindful that there’s still an awful lot of snow to melt,” Les said while touring the flood zone with federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

“I’m told that old-timers around here are quiet aware of that,” Les said. “They said, historically, the river will come up and flood you once, it’ll back off and then come back and kick you again. I’m not saying or prophesying that will happen but it is something we need to be mindful of.”

On Sunday, the Ministry of Transportation reopened Highway 16 between Terrace and Prince Rupert to single-lane alternating traffic with up to 20 minute delays.

The Skeena River fell by more than two metres between its peak Thursday and Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, east of Terrace, the Highway was also reopened in the mud-slide zone. However, it remains closed to traffic from 10 p. m. to 6 am until further notice. An alternate route between Terrace and Kitwanga via the Cranberry Forest Service road is available.

The flooding on the highway also stopped rail service and caused problems for CityWest and Pacific Northern Gas.

CityWest confirmed that at 4 a. m. Friday morning, the fibre connection went off line between Terrace and Prince Rupert.

CityWest officials said at the time they would not know the extent of the damage until the water levels dropped enough to allow them to survey the site. They were reportedly out looking at the problem on Sunday.

Rob Brown General Manager of CityWest said the company had an emergency plan in case of such an event. Ledcor Technical Services, the company that engineered the fibre optic line has been called but they cannot begin work until the area is sage.

Three customers lost service due to the fibre failure but all are now back in service running on emergency back-up systems. Internet customers in Prince Rupert may notice a slow down until further service can be restored.

Meanwhile, Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond confirmed that Pacific Northern Gas (PNG) is reporting a break in its natural gas line, just west of Terrace.

However, with larger customers being asked not to use gas and the public being asked to conserve natural gas, there should be enough gas left in the line not to result in a complete outage.

Hopefully, if we conserve gas they say it could last four days or more,” said Pond.

PNG was also out on Sunday surveying the situation via helicopter.