Tuesday was one of the busiest storm days Dale Johnston has seen in 18 years of business as towing company owner in Summerside and Borden-Carleton.
"This was a good one, a dandy. We have been super, super busy," he said Tuesday night after deciding the best thing to do was leave the 12 or so remaining vehicles right in the ditch where they lay.
"We are going to leave them until morning," he said. "The snow is just getting out of control. It's just a lot safer if people get a lift to safety and leave the car until the next day. Trying to get them out in a whiteout is a dangerous game."
The weather took a turn for the worst starting in the morning in the west and moving rapidly east across the province, with blowing snow causing whiteouts and slippery roads.
"We were running probably an hour behind, the best part of the day, since the snow and the wind picked up there," said Johnston.
"We had a fleet of four trucks out pretty much all day long."
While driving to one of his calls, a van went off the road right in front of him.
"I always find the first few snowfalls are terrible slippery underneath," he said.
Johnston said one good thing about the day was a lack of serious injuries in his coverage area. That was a surprise for him because there was no snow to act as a buffer in the ditches, but everyone was out of their cars when his trucks arrived and many vehicles were able to drive on once winched out, he said.
It was not only driving affected by the howling winds and wet snow. Maritime Electric said that at one point in the evening, 1,600 customers were without power in areas that included O'Leary, Rattenbury, Hunter River, North River, Southport, Cape Bear, West St. Peters, Scotchfort, Sherwood, Charlottetown, Georgetown, Milton, Crossroads, Malpeque, Indian River and Lakeside.
"As of 8:45 p.m. we have approximately 250 customers left to restore power," said Kim Griffin of Maritime Electric in a note to media Tuesday night. "We have nine crews out and our goal is to restore (power) tonight, depending on weather and if we get more outages."
Tow trucks, plows busy on slippery Island roads
- Published on December 30th, 2009
- Published on June 15th, 2010
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Staff ~ Farm Focus
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Comments
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- Living In
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:32:02
As usual, Islanders face death, or at least serious injury, to themselves, their families and their property. This is due to the incompetence of the Department of Highways. A friend just came from NB and said the roads were dry there. Here? Almost impassable. Very dangerous! What is wrong with these incompetents who are supposed to be looking after the state of our roads? Is it not possible to get someone in this Department who can do the job properly and not be putting us and our loved ones in danger? My wife was killed by this incompetence. I don't want to see others have to go through this sort of loss too. Mr Premier, please clue into this terrible and dangerous situation.
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- elizabeth
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:27:34
There was absolutely no need for the horrible road conditions yesterday afternoon on route 2 between Charlottetown and Summerside. What could have solved the problem?? A snow plough, sand truck or salt truck. However I did not see any of these (or any evidence that one had been used) until we reached Milton close to Charlottetown. What are my taxes paying for? I thought it was partially to make our roads safe during these winter storms . I use storms in brackets as we only received 4cm of snow....come on department of transport- you should have been out making sure that the main highways on PEI were safe for travel. Yesterday was ridiculous. Where were the ploughs?
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- bill
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:03:21
just slow down a bit to suit the conditions
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- KingStreetWestEnder
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:51:19
And all this time I thought was Slippy roads- who knew ?
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- Glen L.
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:43:14
Seriously ... Bring the government to court for injuries / death. It happened in Ontario, and the government lost millions of $'s in one case alone. Due to an accident attributed to icy roads. Which led to a change of removal policies.
Problem now, is expect lots salt on the roads and its troubles ie. rust, salt tracks, dead roadside vegetation ete etc.
