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South Cariboo residents exploring ways to get home after highways closed

B.C. declares state of emergency after heavy rains wash away sections of road
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Deka Lake residents Sharon Oswald and Scott Wright found themselves in a hotel in Aldergrove after all roads were closed, preventing them from going home. (Photo submitted).

Dodging rock slides was not on the agenda for Sharon Oswald when she headed to the coast for surgery Sunday.

But three days later, the Deka Lake resident was in an Aldergrove hotel, wondering how she and her husband were going to get home.

“We wanted to be in a local spot in case the road opened up,” she said.

Oswald is one of several South Cariboo residents - from Lone Butte to Clinton - forced to hole up in the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley or Sea to Sky this week after flooding and rock slides damaged roads and closed all the major highways into B.C.’s Interior.

The situation led to evacuation orders for Merritt, Princeton, Sumas Prairie in Abbotsford and other areas of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District. Hundreds of motorists had to be airlifted from Highway 7 near Agassiz after being stranded in a mudslide. As of press time, one body had been recovered from a mudslide on Highway 99.

There was no word Wednesday morning when any of the roads were expected to reopen. Aerial photos circulating early in the week show extensive damage to both highways 5 and 1 - in some areas, sections of the highways have completely washed away. Rail operations have also ceased between the Southern Interior and the coast after the tracks were made impassable.

READ MORE: Grocery stores in 100 Mile affected by highway closures

Oswald, who left Deka Lake with her husband and two dogs at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, said she was glad they brought their pets - something they rarely do on long trips.

This one was especially long - it took them 12.5 hours to get to Langley - having been bounced from the Fraser Canyon to the Coquihalla to the Hope-Princeton Highway due to flooding and mudslides.

“When we pulled up to the Coquihalla there was traffic on all sides of the road,” Oswald’s husband Scott Wright said. “We just got quickly through there to get on the connector again and beat all the traffic.”

Instead, they joined a convoy of other vehicles, inching their way to Princeton at 30 km an hour. They skirted three rockslides on the way. “On 5A it was pretty much bumper to bumper,” Wright said.

By the time they got to Princeton, “the rivers on the side of the road were filling like crazy,” Oswald said.

By late Sunday night, Princeton had declared a state of emergency after the surging Tulameen River breached its banks. Two hundred and ninety homes were ordered to evacuate.

In Hope, a washout at Popkum had closed Highway 1 near Chilliwack. With Oswald scheduled for surgery the next day, they took Highway 7.

“We’d been driving for so long I just wanted to get there,” she said. “It was dark when we got there. We were hitting large puddles. The waterfalls were hitting the side of the truck where they were coming off the mountain. I wasn’t driving but I was white-knuckling my fake steering wheel.”

The couple reached Langley about 7 p.m. Shortly after, Highway 7 was closed. “We probably missed that mudslide within an hour,” Oswald said.

Her surgeon apparently wasn’t as lucky - he was caught in the slide and spent the night in his car, Oswald said. With her surgery cancelled, she and Wright left for Highway 99, but were turned back at Pemberton.

Clinton’s Melissa and Jeremy Painter were also rerouted after trying to get home via Highway 99. The couple, whose weekend getaway turned into an extended stay in Abbotsford, on Tuesday booked a flight to Kamloops - with a three-hour-layover in Calgary - because they wanted to get home to their daughters. They left their car at the coast.

“We were supposed to go on home Sunday but it was raining so hard,” Melissa said. “By then the Coquihalla and Canyon were already closed. It will be good to get home to the girls.

“I’m really thankful we waited here and there and made the choices we did so we didn’t end up stuck somewhere.”

108 Mile resident Catherine Davis agreed.

It was raining heavily and puddles were starting to form when she and her family left North Vancouver for home Sunday.

By the time they reached Chilliwack, traffic was heavy and had stopped altogether about 30 km outside of Hope.

“We noticed lots of people pulling U-turns where they could,” she said. “If we had gone an hour earlier we would have been one of those people stuck in Hope.”

Davis said they debated taking the Hope-Princeton, and later Highway 99, but decided instead to stay with family in North Vancouver and wait it out, mainly because they have three small children.

They may also consider flying home, she said, because they are worried about people rushing to the highway whenever it opens.

Her neighbours have come forward, taking care of her chickens and collecting the eggs. “I’ve had about 10 to 12 people reach out from home,” she said.

Oswald said they will wait it out until Thursday. If no road is open by then, they will head to Nanaimo, drive up the coast and take a ferry to Bella Coola. That plan would take them 18 hours to get home but it beats paying $200 a night for a hotel, Oswald said.

“What can you do? We’re not stuck in Hope, we’re safe in a hotel,” she said.



kelly.sinoski@100milefreepress.net

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