Terrible road conditions, a temporary Hwy 2 road closure and tow advisories were the order of the day as a spring snowstorm on Thursday nailed Central Alberta, mainly to the south of Red Deer.
Slick roads and white-out conditions caused havoc for Hwy 2 travellers between Red Deer and Didsbury, an Innisfail RCMP highway patrol officer said.
Const. Andy Methven said he had a busy day after starting his shift on the road at 6 a.m.
“People need to slow down . . . people need to realize it’s winter out there,” Methven said, shortly before 10 a.m. on Thursday. “Even though the maximum speed limit is 110 km/h, when there is a buildup of snow and slush, 110 is not a reasonable speed. It’s quite less.”
The highway became slushy and slippery north of Innisfail.
Alberta Highway Services was called in to remove snow that had drifted onto the highway, reducing it to one lane in certain areas. At the top of Antler Hill north of Innisfail, several semis ended up the southbound lane, causing further problems.
They likely had tried to park in the rest area.
“It looked like they had been snowed in because of the three-foot drifts of snow,” said Methven. The area was later cleared.
Numerous vehicles hit the ditch between Red Deer and Didsbury. South of Innisfail, white-out conditions made highway driving treacherous.
Kurt Wilkie, operations manager for Alberta Highway Services at Burnt Lake Trail in Red Deer County, said plow trucks had worked area highways since Wednesday afternoon, when the snow storm first struck the Calgary area.
A greening Southern Alberta turned white with the wet and windy snowstorm that closed schools, shut down major highways and mottled the flight board at the Calgary airport with red.
The dump of slushy, heavy snow began on Wednesday and crippled travel as temperatures hovered around the freezing mark and winds gusted to 90 km/h.
At one point, there were so many crashes on Hwy 2 between Calgary and Edmonton that it was closed so that emergency crews could do their work.
RCMP recommended drivers stay off the roads if they could.
Power was out in many communities south of Red Deer because of high winds. As soon as crews managed to solve one problem, another would appear.
In Calgary, utility provider Enmax said as many as 47,000 customers were without electricity at some point during the day.
At the Calgary airport, many flights were cancelled and many more weren’t running on time.
Many schools were reporting bus delays. Several schools in outlying communities around Calgary didn’t even bother to open for the day.
Environment Canada called for skies to clear overnight. The forecast for Red Deer was for sun and 7C today.
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com