By James Peters / Chad Harris

Instability closes Lillooet-area highway, forcing lengthy detour

Sep 28, 2016 | 2:56 PM

LILLOOET, B.C. — The BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says a stretch of Highway 99 north of Lillooet will remain closed for the forseeable future.

Regional Director Mike Lorimer says the 10 Mile Slide area 15 kilometres north of the community is historically unstable, but right now, engineers have noted more movement than usual.

“It’s not actually that debris has come down onto the road. If you can picture the whole mountainside, the whole mountainside is moving, and what happens usually is the earth the road is built on is moving out from underneath. So you are seeing a slippage away from the road,” said Loirmer. 

Lorimer says ministry officials are predicting the route will need to be closed at least through the weekend.

“What we are seeing with this closure is a little bit faster movement than we would like to see, and a little more movement in a bit of a funny time of year. Our geotechnical engineers have been all over the site, just looking at it. As a precaution for safety we have closed it to vehicle traffic while we are monitoring it and looking to stabilize it there.”

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“Right now unfortunately what we are looking at is we are expecting through the weekend to see this closure continue while we look for it to stabilize. If we can see something that is causing it, or if we see this dry weather stabilizing things sooner, we will certainly open it sooner. Definitely taking public safety here first.”

The Fountain (Xaxli’p) Indian Band has declared a state of emergency, which will allow the band to apply for emergency funding to respond to the closure.

Connie Konkin is the executive director of the Lillooet (T’it’q’et) Indian Band’s daycare service.

She says many in the community are frustrated because the closure cuts Lillooet off from communities like Pavilion to the north and east.

Konkin slept at the daycare last night, and says many of the daycare’s children will have to be billeted if their parents can’t make the nearly three hour detour through Lytton.

“What do they do, there has to be family, right? I mean there is family in place, but we don’t know how long it is going to be closed. It is frustrating all around,” said Konkin.

Area politicians met with Ministry of Transportation officials in April, and committed to coming up with a solution, but it hasn’t happened yet.

“It’s just really frustrating, like people want to go home, people want to be in the comforts of their home,” said Konkin. “They want to be able to drive on a safe route. I just don’t understand with all these meeting and everything the Ministry of Transportation and everyone else, why they can’t figure it out.” 

“I would like to see them fix it, and have an alternative. They should have a Plan B, so if that part is going to be closed, they should have another route planned out that connects from the bottom to the top. Perhaps a bridge, perhaps a secondary road.”