Stretch of highway fraught with danger
Icy conditions led to a steady stream of crashes Wednesday on Highway 97 between Penticton and Summerland. There were four crashes in the morning alone, according to Chris Forster, assistant chief of the Penticton Fire Department, which responded to all of them.
“The roads are very icy. People should be slowing down and driving accordingly,” he told The Herald around 2 p.m., just as another call was arriving for his crews.
That was followed less than an hour later by a rollover on the same stretch of road that saw a white car go down an embankment and stop just short of rolling into Okanagan Lake.
A police officer at the scene said no one was hurt, as was the case during the morning crashes, too, according to Forster.
Multiple vehicles also collided north of Summerland, which reduced Highway 97 to single lane, alternating traffic around noon.
Equally poor conditions plagued roads around the Central Okanagan, while major routes to the coast were also in bad shape.
The Okanagan Connector highway between West Kelowna and Merritt is expected to get another 10 centimetres of snow today, while the Coquihalla from Merritt to Hope is slated to get upwards of 15 cm. A report released earlier this month by the Insurance Corporation of B.C. noted there are an average of 1,200 crashes each year in the province over the holiday season.
That works out to 22 crashes and six people injured every hour between Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone.
“With many people travelling to spend the holidays with family and friends, drivers should be prepared for the varied winter road conditions they’ll encounter,” ICBC’s Lindsay Matthews said in a press release.
“We’re asking drivers to also consider their own behaviour on our busy roads by driving smart. If we want everyone to arrive safely — we need to start with our own driving.”
Don’t put that shovel away just yet.
Environment Canada on Wednesday issued a special weather statement for the entire Okanagan, warning of heavy snow to come.
It explained Arctic air over the B.C. Interior was expected to collide late Wednesday with moisture from a Pacific front, resulting in up to four centimetres of snow.
“On Thursday a stronger impulse will result in more snow and amounts of five to 10 cm are forecast for much of the Similkameen, Okanagan, Arrow-Slocan and West Kootenays.
“More snow is likely for Friday,” the statement added.
Temperatures are forecast to remain well below freezing through at least the end of the week.
The average high for this time of year is 1 C and the average low is – 5 C, according to Environment Canada data.