UPDATED: Winter storm wreaks havoc on Kamloops roads
UPDATED: As of 10 p.m., emergency crews reportedly continued to respond to collisions all over south Kamloops — most notably, multi-car pileups on the Summit Connector and Dagleish Drive.
It was a chaotic scene on Kamloops roads this evening (Jan. 14) as Mother Nature unloaded a huge dump of snow on the Tournament Capital.
Snow started falling in the late afternoon, and by about 5:30 p.m. roads around the city were slick.
As the white stuff continued to fall through 6 p.m., emergency crews began receiving reports of traffic accidents all over town — including what was reportedly a multi-car pileup on Victoria Street near Memorial Arena, and another five-car collision on Lorne Street.
One of the major areas of concern for police was the road leading up to Royal Inland Hospital from Columbia Street, which had apparently turned into a skating rink. It was reported another dozen vehicles had piled up there.
At one point, at about 7:30 p.m., Mounties asked to have RIH's emergency room keep patients from leaving, for fear their vehicles might not make it safely back down the hill.
Around 8 p.m., reports of three spun-out west-bound semis on the Trans-Canada just past Valleyview created more problems and shut down the highway for a brief time.
Eventually, police were able to re-open one lane of traffic, but some ill-equipped vehicles continued to struggle.
The winter-weather blast created quite a stir on Twitter, where Kamloops residents — including KTW reporters Jeremy Deutsch (@JeremyKTW) and Tim Petruk (@timpetruk) — tried to keep each other up to date on the snowfall.
Here are some of the tweets:
@cmck_: Stay off the roads #kamloops
@Acoustikglam: Please ..if you are on the roads tonight ...do be careful. I don't want anyone to get hurt, or worse. #Kamloops
@taffbyproxy: Snowing steadily. Looks like a couple inches on the ground...it can stop any time now! #UpperSahali #Kamloops #BCStorm
@KamiTheFish: Some people are building a HUGE snowman at the Park. #snowmage to Winter? #Kamloops
@bdavis65: people stuck everywhere due to this blanket of snow #kamloops
@JeremyKTW: Sounds like #Kamloops RCMP are shutting down several downtown roads.
@TheFirstQueenR: It is snowing yaaaay #Kamloops
@Miz250: I've stopped looking out the window. The amount of snow is overwhelming. Time to be a hermit. #Kamloops
@Lisa_Lake: Glad I am not out on the roads tonight; winter has arrived in #Kamloops with lots of snow!! It sure looks pretty though
@timpetruk: You can tell it's snowing a lot when your footprints from 20 minutes ago disappear. #Kamloops #snowpocalypse
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