An emergency alert urged drivers to stay off the roads Friday as a fierce winter storm reduced visibility to near zero in many areas and caused accidents, including pile-ups, in southern Manitoba.
According to the RCMP, at least 50 to 60 collisions had been reported on southern Manitoba highways by Friday afternoon, and dozens of highways were closed, including the Trans-Canada from Winnipeg to Brandon, which was closed for most of the time. part of the day on Friday but reopened around 5:30 p.m.
The Southern Health regional health authority declared a code orange at Bethesda Regional Health Center in Steinbach and Ste. Anne Hospital on Friday morning after a multi-vehicle crash near Ste. Anne, about 45 kilometers north. southeast of Winnipeg, a Shared Health spokesperson said.
A code orange is called when a hospital needs to prepare for a possible sudden influx of patients.
Manitoba RCMP reported 30 crashes as of noon Friday and, a few hours later, that number had doubled. This pushed some hospitals to prepare for a massive influx of potential patients.
The Health Sciences Center in Winnipeg also issued a code orange alert, warning that a code orange may be called shortly before 11 a.m. in response to several multi-vehicle collisions outside the city, the spokesperson said.
The province of Manitoba issued a news release and also sent out a phone alert shortly after noon, warning drivers to avoid traveling on southern Manitoba roads amid worsening conditions. It was the first time the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization had sent out an alert for hazardous road conditions, a provincial spokesperson said.
“It is necessary to give emergency vehicles priority on the roads,” the province stated in its press release, also warning that it is illegal to travel on closed roads.
“The roads are treacherous, there’s no other word to describe them,” said RCMP Sgt. said Pablo Manaigre. “I don’t think there’s an officer in southern Manitoba who isn’t dealing with an accident right now or hasn’t written it up. It’s crazy.”
It appeared that most of the accidents had caused no injuries, but police will have more information about the severity of the collisions later in the day, he said.
“[It’s] “It’s clearly a day to stay home and just wait.”
The province said that, for the safety of plow drivers and other motorists, it was pausing snow clearing operations on roads where visibility was reduced.
Roads will be salted or sanded once the winds die down, said Tara Liske, Manitoba’s executive director of regional highway operations, but “ultimately, it’s the RCMP that will have to reopen the roads.”
Meanwhile, the City of Winnipeg said it would begin cleaning streets and sidewalks at 7 p.m. Friday, under its street cleaning priority system.
The road closures, which spanned across southern Manitoba, included the entire perimeter highway in Winnipeg, which was closed at 10:30 a.m. and reopened just before the start of the Friday afternoon rush hour.
Winnipeg police said dozens of vehicles were involved in collisions, including a pile-up on Fermor Avenue, east of Lagimodiere Boulevard. About 20 vehicles were involved and one person was taken to the hospital in unstable condition, police said.
Manaigre said RCMP believe the driver collided with another car, exited her vehicle and was then hit by another vehicle.
“It’s not something we see very often,” he said, but reminded drivers to stay inside their vehicles and wait for emergency services after an accident.
Chris Parks said his wife was in one of the vehicles involved in the crash. He was on his way to work when his truck was hit from behind and became trapped between two semi-trailers.
SEE | “She’s lucky to be alive,” says a man after his wife is involved in a pile-up:
Chris Parks spoke to CBC shortly after paramedics pulled his wife from their truck following a crash involving multiple vehicles on Fermor Avenue east of Lagimodiere Boulevard in dark conditions on Friday, January 17.
“It was a total blackout,” Parks said from the scene of the accident, where he went to pick up his wife after she called him. Paramedics checked her and released her, he said.
“She’s lucky to be alive.”
Roland firefighters responded to another pileup involving six vehicles near Highways 23 and 3, about 80 kilometers southwest of Winnipeg.
And heading east, Daniel Boonstra said it took him about two hours to travel approximately 100 kilometers from Winnipeg to Whitemouth.
“There are a lot of vehicles in the ditch. Just east of Dugald, there’s a car accident right before the train tracks…I had to take back roads to get around it,” he said.
“In the city, visibility is good… but once you get out into the open, it’s absolutely brutal.”
Power outages, school closures
The wild weather is the result of a cold front that brought strong northerly winds across the southern half of the province, where Environment Canada issued blizzard warnings that included Winnipeg, the Red River Valley and Interlake. Those warnings were lifted mid-afternoon Friday, and Environment Canada said the worst conditions would ease later or early in the evening.
Meanwhile, extreme cold warnings were issued for far northern Manitoba, as well as some areas of western Manitoba and a swath to the east, between Lake Winnipeg and the Ontario border.
Wind chills in the -40 to -45 range are expected in parts of western and central Manitoba, as well as the north, Friday night and Saturday morning, Environment Canada said.
Power outages were not as widespread Friday as during other weather events, a Manitoba Hydro spokesperson said, but dangerous road conditions made them difficult to resolve.
“The way we find outages and fix them is often just patrolling up and down the line to see what’s broken. That was very difficult to do,” Peter Chura said.
“We had at least one vehicle end up in a ditch today… That slowed us down a little bit.”
There were still some outages Friday afternoon, but Hydro “had certainly gotten over the hump,” Chura said.
SEE | Dash cam footage shows travel chaos as snowstorm hits Manitoba:
Dash cam video shows several vehicles on the side of Highway 9 near Lockport, Man., Friday morning, as blizzard conditions and low visibility caused crashes and road closures across the southern Manitoba.
The snowstorm also caused multiple school closures, including an unusual situation for a school division.
The Seine River School Division, which covers a large area south and southeast of Winnipeg, decided shortly after 8 a.m. to close its schools for the day, but some students had already been picked up on buses.
The division posted an alert on its website, saying students would be dropped off at the nearest school, not necessarily their own, for parents to pick up. The alert said parents would be contacted to let them know where their children are and how to find them.
In a letter to families later that day, the division said conditions were “windy but manageable, with good visibility and open roads” early in the morning, but as conditions quickly worsened, it decided to close schools shortly before 8am Notices were sent to families and staff shortly after 8 a.m., the division said.
“I sincerely apologize for the late notice regarding school closure today. I understand the challenges and frustration this may have caused,” said the letter, signed by Superintendent Colin Campbell.
Several other school divisions canceled classes Friday, while some remained open during the day but suspended bus service.
SEE | Stormy winter weather prompts road closures and travel warnings in Manitoba:
There was chaos on Manitoba roads today as a snowstorm paralyzed the southern part of the province. Chaos ensued Friday morning as strong winds caused blizzard conditions. It left drivers in ditches and the RCMP responding to dozens of accidents.
Red River College Polytechnic closed its campuses at 4 p.m., canceling all evening classes due to changing weather conditions.
Meanwhile, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says community health services, particularly home care services, may be affected by the weather, and clients whose visits will be postponed or canceled can expect to be contacted by phone and notified of the change.
Temperature drop
Along with the snow, temperatures across the South are expected to drop throughout the day on Friday.
In Winnipeg, an early morning temperature of 2 C was forecast to drop to -13 C in the afternoon, with a wind chill of around -30 C.
Daytime highs over the weekend and early next week are forecast to be between –21C and –26C, with nighttime lows between –24C and –30C.
Normal for this time of year is a maximum of –13 C and a minimum of –23 C.
