“The Goal is to Get Them Safe”- Chair of CRD
BC Highway cam captures stream of traffic heading south on 97 south of Williams Lake
Prince George, B.C. – It has been a confusing and stressful evening for folks in the Williams Lake area as they face an evacuation order. They have been advised to head south on 97 then east on 24 to Little Fort where they will receive more information.
Cariboo Regional District Chair, Al Richmond says the confusion is because of the fire at Soda Creek which has crossed the highway, making it impossible for those south of that fire to take the northern route, but those living north of that fire were to head to Prince George.
Richmond says those who have been directed to follow the route to Kamloops will be getting more information in Little Fort “They are being directed at the junction of Highway 5” he says the final instructions are changing because “There’s fires all over, so they will be directed either south to Kamloops where we’ve found accommodation for them, they are trying to tell them where they can go.”
Richmond says the situation is changing “Just like the wind does with the fires.” The fires are causing problems north on highway 5, as the full District of Clearwater is on evacuation alert as well “That’s why the people at that corner ( of highways 24 and 5 ) are making that decision. We are dealing with masses of people and it will change as we go along”
He says there are some other communities that are opening up emergency service centres to take the pressure off Kamloops and Prince George, “There’s communities opening up even in the lower mainland to look after evacuees.”
“The goal is to get them safe, Once they are at Little Fort and down that way, they are safe and out of harms way.”
Comments
Little fort was under an alert itself, thakfully the route through there is still open. The Question now for evacuees is about the supply of gasoline. If it is short people will have to go to Kamloops as they will lack the gas to go north
I would think that is a major consideration, yes. It’s about 300KM to Kamloops from Williams Lake via Little Fort, and about 700KM to PG via Little Fort.
Yes there are gas stations along the way to PG from Little Fort, but many of them close up early and while I don’t know this for sure, I suspect there may be issues with supply of fuel given the number of vehicles that would be coming through all at once.
At 300KM, most people could probably make the drive to Kamloops without stopping. At 700KM, many people probably couldn’t, especially if they were driving a truck or had a trailer in tow. The lineups for gas could take hours and you could have traffic backlogging the highway, which is the evacuation route.
I suspect the priority is to keep traffic flowing as best as possible and that probably means the route to Kamloops?
How on earth do you figure Little Fort is 700km away from PG?
According to Google maps it has mapped PG to Little Fort using Hwy 16 and then Hwy 5 or vise versa. It is a 700 K trip because motorists have to drive from WL to Little Fort that is 133 km away. Then to drive from Little Fort to PG that is another 518 km. Too long. They are better off to head south.
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