Major Highway Closures Cut Off Interior Travel

Feb 21, 2014 | 1:19 PM

With serious avalanche risks, the most extreme ever encountered on the Coquihalla Highway, the route remains closed again tonight. Mother nature has made her presence known over the last eleven days, dumping 3-hundred centimetres of snow on the route, linking BC’s South Coast and the Southern Interior. That’s the most snow the Coquihalla Summit has seen, since it opened in 1986. Officials had hoped to start avalanche control today, but the work can’t begin until the area is deemed safe. Late yesterday afternoon, a massive avalanche came down on the route between Hope and Merritt. Ministry of Transportation officials are monitoring the situation, and VSA highway maintenance crews are working around the clock to clear parts of the road, where it’s safe to do so. Making matters much worse, the Trans Canada Highway was also closed this afternoon, between Spences Bridge and Jackass Mountain, because of a firey crash involving several vehicles, including two semi’s.