May Know Later Today When One Lane Will Open on 16 West Near Terrace

By 250 News

Crews continue to work at removing the tens of thousands of cubic metres of debris from Highway 16 ,  39 Kilometres east of Terrace.

“We hope  that later today we will be able to offer some estimate as to when we will have one lane open” says Ministry of Transportation spokesman Jeff Knight.

Knight says the crews are working from dawn till dark to remove the 25 thousand cubic metres of debris which rumbled down on the highway Monday morning. Work had to be suspended last night for a while when geo-technical monitors noticed a shift in the debris. “There was heavy rain there last night, and the monitors told us the slide was showing some signs of movement, so we pulled everyone away from the site, and sure enough, some debris came down.”

Today, there is light rain and the mountain of debris hasn’t shown any further signs of shifting.

There is a potential detour, but again, Knight says it would be a “use at your own risk” scenario.  “It is a four hour detour that would involve highway 37, the Nisga’a highway and about 55 kilometres of an active, one lane logging road.  That road is rugged and slow going.  It is not a detour we are recommending however, if people chose to use it, they do so at their own risk.”

The work of  removing the pile of  mud, trees and rocks from the  highway  resumed this morning at first light “We are making progress” says Jeff Knight, “The crews are doing the very best they can.”

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