Crippling 70-vehicle pileup
On Hwy. 400 in Barrie, cars, trucks and transports slam into each other in whiteout conditions as the latest blast of winter whips southern Ontario and leaves thousands without power
A blast of winter weather that included damaging winds and blowing snow caused chaos on highways in southern Ontario and left thousands of residents in many communities powerless, said police, fire and hydro officials Monday. A major mid-morning crash on Hwy. 400 south of Barrie left several people with minor injuries.
Local fire officials said the collision involved more than 70 vehicles and required a stretch of the busy northsouth highway to be shut down in both directions for about seven hours.
Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said the driving conditions in the area were terrible.
“We have whiteout conditions right now — snow and blowing snow — we have zero visibility,” he said from the scene, where traffic was backed up in both directions before being detoured.
Videos of the collision posted by Schmidt online show dozens of vehicles, including several transport trucks and one fuel tanker, smashed together, with numerous cars also in the ditch.
Schmidt said the fire department had to use the Jaws of Life to pry some of the vehicles apart.
“The collisions that were involved were fender benders piling in to one another, to the other, to the other,” Schmidt said.
Samantha Hoffman, a spokesperson for the Barrie fire department, said the collision occurred about 10 a.m. on the southbound lanes of the highway. A 500-litre diesel spill caused by the crash was contained.
Ryan Harris said he was driving south on the highway when he came upon stopped traffic that stretched out in front of him for about a kilometre.
“Sometimes I can see the emergency vehicles, but there are moments where the wind is so strong that it’s just a complete whiteout and the truck starts shaking,” Harris said in a phone interview from his vehicle.
“It’s really bad.”
Emergency crews were dealing with other multi-vehicle pileups across the province. Police in eastern Ontario said an 18-vehicle collision in Champlain Township had seven people taken to hospital, some with serious injuries.
OPP Sgt. Jason Folz said a 20-car pileup on Hwy. 11 north of Orillia occurred about 10 a.m.
There were no serious injuries in that incident, he said. Several hours earlier, there was a 14-car crash on Hwy. 115 near Peterborough, again with no serious injuries.
“There are whiteout conditions happening all over the central region of Ontario,” Folz said.
High winds that swept across parts of the province late Sunday into Monday also left thousands without power. Hydro One said more than 175,000 people lost electricity in the nearly 24 hours since the storm hit.
Spokesperson Alicia Sayers said that while the utility has restored power to the majority of customers, there are still hundreds of outages impacting more than 9,000 people across the province.
Toronto can expect temperatures to dip below -15 C with wind chill in the coming days.