Saskatchewan highways reopen to stranded travellers
With a ball of yarn stuffed in her purse, Linda Robinson nearly knitted an entire sock as she waited for the TransCanada Highway west of Regina to reopen Friday morning.
“I might just finish it,” said Robinson — one of dozens of stranded passengers in the STC bus depot lobby. “I do have enough to make two pairs, but hopefully I won’t be here that long.”
On Wednesday night, the province closed sections of the highway due to high winds and blowing snow that made visibility too poor to travel.
But by 9:35 a.m. Friday, the full length of the highway between Manitoba and Alberta was reopened to traffic. Members of the Regina Police Service had to direct traffic on Victoria Avenue East and the Ring Road as vehicles lined up to exit the city. Throughout the day, other highways in the province also reopened to traffic.
The news couldn’t have come any sooner for Jose Lopez. Sitting in the packed Husky House truck stop on Prince of Wales Drive, Lopez and co-driver Ernesto Dias drank coffee and wondered about the health of their cargo, especially the plants.
“WE HAVE SHELTER. IT’S THE PRAIRIES. IT’S SPRINGTIME. IT HAPPENS.” DON NEWMAN
The men left Toronto earlier in the week en route to Vancouver but got stranded in Regina on Thursday morning after the highway was closed.
Originally from El Salvador, Lopez’s admits his first trip through the Prairies was a memorable one. And, even though the 24-hour stopover was costing the company money and time, it was better than having the truck slide off the highway, he said.
For Robinson, the stopover was one more adventure since she left Swift Current on March 3 for an African safari in Kenya and Tanzania.
She arrived at the Regina International Airport on Wednesday from connecting flights in Calgary and London, England. She spent the night in a hotel and got up early Thursday morning for a 7:30 a.m. bus ride back to Swift Current ― only to find out the trip was cancelled.
Sitting across from Robinson was Don Newman. It was his first time being stranded after his bus trip from Winnipeg to Red Deer was halted in Regina on Thursday at 6:30 a.m. Newman and several other passengers spent the night sleeping on mats inside the bus terminal.
“We have shelter. It’s the Prairies. It’s springtime. It happens,” he said.
Throughout the ordeal, Newman passed the time drinking coffee and watching Battlestar Galactica on his laptop computer. He laughs and wonders what he would have done without his computer.
“I couldn’t imagine doing something like this 10 years ago,” he said.
Shawn Grice, STC’s president and CEO, said part of the company’s protocol is to keep the bus terminal open so stranded passengers can have a safe place to stay. “Otherwise, passengers would be really stuck looking for accommodations in the city,” he said.
STC began cancelling service Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, Grice said staff monitored the weather situation and provided passengers with updates, meal vouchers and mats to sleep on until travel was allowed to resume.
“It was a fairly significant storm in the history of STC,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that some of the people got stranded where they are but (it’s) better to be here than then stuck on the side of the road,” he said.