Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
A rock slide west of Keremeos, B.C., has closed a six-kilometre portion of Highway 3 and resulted in an evacuation order for two properties.
The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen has also declared a state of local emergency for seven days in the area due to the slide, which happened on Sunday evening.
The two properties under an evacuation order are at 3455 and 3491 Highway 3. The district has set up an emergency operations centre at the baptist church in Princeton, about 50 kilometres northwest, for those affected by the order.
DriveBC says a detour is available along Highway 97 to Highway 97C and then Highway 5A.
The next update about the closure will be provided at 1 p.m. PT Tuesday.
Rhonda Wilkins, owner of the River Valley RV Park, which falls within the evacuation order, says rock falls are a common occurrence in the area.
“We aren’t nervous or anything, I mean it happens all the time,” she said.
Jim Zaffino, manager of finance for the regional district, said the district is open to discussing longer-term solutions with the Ministry of Transportation to improve infrastructure along that stretch of the road.
“We would like to see what we can do better for the taxpayers here,” he said.
For now, Zaffino says the district is waiting for the geotechnical engineers to perform slope assessments and determine the cause of the rockfall.
Power outage
A spokesperson for FortisBC, which provides electricity in the region, said about 1,500 customers lost power at around 7:40 p.m. PT Sunday due to the slide.
Around 9 p.m. it had restored power to majority of those customers, but as of Monday morning about 150 remained in the dark, he said.
“When there’s an active rock slide or an issue that we have to navigate like that, we have to take a level of care as we respond to restore power as quickly as is possible,” he said.
The utility’s website shows power has been restored in the affected areas.
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Credit belongs to : ca.news.yahoo.com
