‘White-knuckle driving:’ Rain, snow leave southeast Sask. highways slick

The winter weather that was expected to wallop Saskatchewan on Friday only clipped the southeastern part of the province, but it still caused hazardous driving conditions.

As of noon, a jackknifed semi was causing delays on the Trans-Canada Highway at Qu’Appelle, and a multi-vehicle crash had slowed traffic on the Trans-Canada near Balgonie.

Melissa Danis, who commutes daily to Regina from her home in McLean, saw the effects of that latter crash on her way into the city.

“There was clearly two semis, one of which the trailer on the semi – a 53-foot trailer – was peeled open like a can of tomato soup,” Danis said. “There was fire and police and all kinds of other EMS vehicles and multiple passenger vehicles all over the place.”

Doug Lapchuk, the chief of the Balgonie Volunteer Fire Department and First Responders, was at the scene of the collision east of the Highway 10 overpass.

Lapchuk and five members were called to the scene around 6:30 a.m., and got off around 9 a.m.

“Conditions were absolutely bloody awful …,” he said. “When we responded, my command unit, at 30 kilometres per hour, I touched the brakes and I slid all over the road.

“The highways were very bad east of the No. 10 overpass.”

Lapchuk said a semi was pulled over due to road conditions when another semi hit the parked truck and split the trailer open, spilling cargo into the ditch.

According to Lapchuk, no injuries were reported, but paramedics were on the scene.

Five volunteer crew members set up traffic control a kilometre from the scene, but still had drivers ignoring restrictions.

Lapchuk said his crew deserves the respect like someone would give while entering another workspace.

“My crew are volunteers,” he said. “There are lots in this province who aren’t the only ones by any stretch, but the police and the tow trucks all deserve and demand respect on our scenes so that we can go home.”

Normally, it takes Danis 20 minutes to get to work. On Friday morning, it took her over an hour. She said her top speed driving in was 30 km/h.

“It was greased lightning all the way from McLean to Balgonie, and even slippery after Balgonie,” said Danis, who described the conditions as being “worse than I’ve seen in a long time.”

Danis said three centimetres of snow on the shoulders of the highway made things slick, but she said the issue was the rain that fell had frozen, then snow had fallen on top of it. She said visibility was OK, but the winds were high.

Danis runs a trucking company, and said she called off her runs going east and west of Regina after hearing the storm was coming. One of her drivers was to travel towards Virden, Man., but didn’t go as the storm blew through.

“It was so windy that he, with 20 years of experience driving, said, ‘Ahhh, I don’t think so,’ ” she said.

Don Willock was travelling through the Estevan-Carlyle area on Highway 361 to work at an oilpatch.

Willock started driving from Lampman and said the rain started Thursday at around 5 p.m. It continued overnight before turning into snow Friday morning.

“It was pretty thick this morning,” he said. “It’s heavy, wet snow.”

According to Willock, the snow was not piling up too badly, but around seven centimetres of snow had fallen.

Visibility held out during his drive and improved as the sun came up.

“I’m not scared for moose or deer or anything like that popping up in front of me at all,” Willock said. “It’s just what we call in the oilpatch out here some white-knuckle driving.”

For a brief period around 6 a.m., travel was not recommended on Highway 13 near Arcola and Carlyle.

Kyle McAulay, a forecaster with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the storm was tricky to track.

Originally, the storm was expected to hit the central and southern areas of the province, with up to 14 cm of snow to fall in Regina and the surrounding area. Instead, it missed Saskatoon completely and barely dodged Regina.

Regina saw a few light flurries Friday morning, but McAulay said areas in the southeast saw four cm at the most.

“Those amounts can vary because temperatures are pretty close to 0 (C), so there might be some snow that’s on the ground,” he said.

Winds blowing up to 60 km/h kept things cool. Blowing snow was also forecast in the southeast due to the low pressure system.

“As the day goes on, these winds are going to get weaker and weaker so it’s going to be less of a chance of any blowing snow,” said McAulay.

There weren’t any weather warnings issued for Saskatchewan by Environment and Climate Change Canada.