Rugby Canada players game for snow day in James Bay
SLIPPERY STREETS SNARL TRAFFIC; THOUSANDS LOSE POWER
James Bay Community School students and members of the Canadian men’s national rugby team make a snowman at MacDonald Park in James Bay on Wednesday. Canada’s captain Gordon McRorie says the players realize they are role models and want to give back through community activities. The Canadian players are preparing for their Americas Championship Tournament Test match on Saturday against Chile at Westhills Stadium in Langford.
Temperatures could warm to double digits by weekend, forecaster says
Greater Victoria weather is in for a change after a winter storm that dumped snow for much of Wednesday, affecting traffic and altering school schedules.
“The temperatures are going to soar, and therefore the rain and the temperatures are going to do a pretty quick job on what snow is present,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Armel Castellan.
He said today’s forecast high is 8 C and temperatures could reach double digits by the weekend.
“When we do and it’s a little bit sunny, I think [the snow] will be very happily an old memory.”
The temperature spike and the melting that comes with it could lead to some flooding, Castellan said.
“If people have snow right along the side of their house and they’re getting all this moisture, it’s in the wrong place.”
Shoveling snow away from your house could help reduce the chance of flooding, Castellan said.
“Be careful, too, because this is very heavily water-laden snow,” he said. “It’s much heavier than if it was just fluffy powder.”
Sooke residents can prepare for flooding by filling sandbags using materials at the public yard.
Environment Canada storm and snowfall warnings covered much of the southern part of the province on Wednesday.
The weather agency said some areas of the Fraser Canyon and Coquihalla Summit could see up to 70 centimetres of snow before today is over, while up to 60 centimetres is forecast to fall on the Sea-to-Sky Highway between Squamish and Whistler.
On Vancouver Island, freezing rain and downpours are forecast to follow a day of heavy snow.
As of 10:30 p.m., about 4,500 customers on south Vancouver Island and 3,300 on the north Island were without power. Many of the 40 outages were blamed on the storm.
Snow began falling about 10 a.m. in Greater Victoria and got heavier as the day went on, the result of an intense Pacific warm front.
It accumulated quickly on the Malahat, and roads in Shawnigan Lake and Mill Bay were covered by about 12:30 p.m.
Police encouraged drivers to stay off roads.
“With this type of weather, expect road conditions to be poor this time of year,” said Shawnigan Lake RCMP Cpl. Greg Pask. “If you don’t need to go anywhere, if it’s not an emergency, then stay at home.
“Try to stay off the roads, let the road crews do their jobs.”
In Victoria, busy officers were responding only to high-priority calls “where life or limb is in danger,” Const. Matt Rutherford said.
Many workplaces closed early and sent employees home. Likely because of those early closings, Blanshard Street heading out of downtown was jammed with barely moving traffic in the late afternoon. Cars stretched bumper to bumper from downtown to north of Hillside Avenue.
Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt reduced its operations to a skeleton crew. The aim was to allow its people to get home safely and relieve the roads of a little rush-hour traffic.
At the University of Victoria, dozens of students and employees queued to get onto buses and vehicles inched along Ring Road after the campus was closed at 1:45 p.m. Camosun College shut down its campuses, as did Vancouver Island University and North Island College.
B.C. Transit said many bus routes faced delays and some routes were cancelled. Some bus drivers avoided stopping on hills and several were rerouted to avoid problem areas. The time needed for bus journeys doubled and tripled.
Wednesday evening on Blanshard Street, traffic was at a standstill in the northbound lanes from about Cloverdale Avenue to Saanich Road. Motorists reported staying in one spot for more than half an hour.
Vehicles were having trouble going up the hill approaching Saanich Road, but the main problem was a bus that had swerved sideways. It was moved enough by 7:30 p.m. to allow single-lane traffic to get by.
Central Saanich police Cpl. Dan Cottingham said drivers on the Patricia Bay Highway also had problems. “For some reason that rise, coming up southbound approaching Tanner, they’re having a lot of troubles there.”
He said there was a handful of motor-vehicle incidents during the first few hours of the snow, with no serious injuries.
In Saanich, police were warning motorists to avoid hills as much as possible.
Saanich police Acting Sgt. Jereme Leslie listed hills on Arbutus Road, Cedar Hill Road between San Juan Avenue and Kenmore Road, and Claremont Avenue among those that could cause problems.
Victoria police set up barricades in the afternoon on the hill on Fifth Street at Topaz Avenue to keep vehicles off. Police dealt with numerous collisions, including one where a vehicle ran into a utility pole at Bay and Shakespeare streets. Air traffic was also affected. Victoria International Airport was experiencing “blizzard conditions” by about 1:30 p.m., leading to cancellations and delays, said James Bogusz, the Victoria Airport Authority’s vice-president of operations and development.
He said he talked with WestJet and was told the airline’s entire network was being affected.
“I guess the whole West Coast is getting hit pretty hard.”
Harbour Air cancelled all flights Wednesday out of Victoria Harbour at about 1 p.m., citing weather conditions.
The Gulf Islands school district dismissed all schools at noon. Schools in the Sooke, Saanich and Greater Victoria school districts remained open but students were allowed to leave early.
“We’re doing that because we have some staff that live in places that are dangerous or hard to get at, and so we’re hoping that we can reduce the school population,” said Sooke superintendent Jim Cambridge.