Repairs to Coquihalla corridor proceeding ahead of schedule

MERRITT, BC — It’s been nearly a month since the atmospheric river event dumped record levels of precipitation throughout the southwest section of British Columbia.

While many evacuees have returned home, and some highways are open for essential travel and the movement of goods, there’s still significant work to be done on some of the major routes which connect the Interior to the Lower Mainland.

“I would say in my career, I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude,” Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) Executive Director for the Southern Interior Paula explains. “I’m not sure if there’s been anything like this in B.C.’s history.”

“Every time you’d go from one site to another, more and more of the highway was gone,” General Manager of Yellowhead Road and Bridge (YRB) Nicola Dave Duncan explains. “The river was carrying boulders and trees, you know, thirty inches wide in diameter.”

Since that event took place, the MOTI, along with an army of contractors have been hard at work repairing the significant damage it caused to the Coquihalla Highway. According to Ministry Staff, that hard work is paying off.

“It’s incredibly impressive what’s happening out there. Crews are working around the clock, we’ve got over 100 pieces of equipment at work on the corridor, 200 people working. We are full out,” Cousins says. “[We’re] really excited to be able to get some form of traffic on this corridor by early January.”

YRB Nicola has been keeping the highway clear of snow to ensure contractors can access the sites, as well as taking the lead on reconstruction efforts. According to Duncan, accelerating the workflow means learning how to multi-task on the fly.

“Usually you plan, design, engineer, construct. Now we’re planning, constructing, engineering and designing – all four of those things at the same time – so we can get the work done in the right schedule to get this open.”

At its height, the Coquihalla River was flowing at more than 300 cubic meters of water per second. With that volume of water, it carved out new routes, taking huge chunks of highway and riverbank with it. The highway experienced damage or washouts at 20 sites over a 130-kilometre stretch.

“It’s pretty incredible what people and machinery can do when they’re motivated,” Cousins says. “They’ve certainly been motivated here. Mother Nature could impede us a little bit, but we’re pretty determined to get this highway open in early January.”

The repair work done to the Coquihalla corridor up to this point is nothing short of miraculous. However, MOTI wants motorists to temper their expectations and understand that the highway won’t be fully open for quite some time.

“We will have some segments where we’ll have vehicles crossing over and only [one] lane in either direction,” Cousins says. “A really incredible and impressive effort to get goods moving in BC again in early January, but it’s not going to be like it was.”