Update: Slick Conditions Cause Traffic Probs

Feb 13, 2019 | 10:02 AM

UPDATE Feb. 13

It’s another icy day on the roads.

Drivers tell us Highway 6 from Vernon to Lumby has sections of black ice, same thing with Vernon to Lake Country.

An accident around 8:30 this morning involved a a vehicle rollover southbound on Highway 97 just after the landfill turnoff on Birnie Road.

Constable Kelly Brett says RCMP responded to over a dozen motor vehicle incidents due to poor driving conditions Tuesday but there were no serious injuries reported.

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“We would like to remind motorists to allow extra time to travel as so they are not rushing to where they need to be. As well please allow space between vehicles to give time to react if need be,” Brett tells Beach Radio News in an email.

A two vehicle incident Tuesday afternoon on Highland Road saw a northbound truck crossing over the lanes and going through a concrete barrier and into the ditch, landing on its roof.

“The other car was left up on the highway. There were no serious injuries. The people were very lucky,” says BX Swan Lake Fire Chief Bil Wacey.

Wacey says both vehicles were “wrecked.”

UPDATE: 5:40 pm Feb. 12

The BX-Swan Lake fire department is at the scene of two vehicle accidents.

Firefighters were called to a vehicle on its roof after it went off of an embankment on the 7900 block Highland Road.

Another crew was dispatched to an accident on Highway 97 at the Swan Lake junction where a pickup truck had hit a concrete barrier.

A listener says one of the southbound lanes into Vernon is blocked by the accident and people should drive with care.

This listener says he also went past a two-vehicle crash by O’Keefe Ranch and police were attending.

He calls the roads “brutal.”

ORIGINAL STORY:

All that snow Tuesday caused treacherous conditions on North Okanagan roadways and led to a number of vehicle incidents.

Listeners say multiple vehicles, including a Fed Ex truck, went off Highway 97 southbound in the Crystal Waters area near Oyama.

Earlier, emergency services attended incidents in the 7600 block of Silver Star Road where a vehicle was in the ditch as well as near the Spallumcheen industrial site.

Just before 5 p.m., Drive BC reported that the Coquihalla Highway’s southbound lanes between Merritt and Hope had reopened.

However Highway One west of Glacier National Park remained closed in both directions.

(Drive BC webcam shows Highway 97 near Spallumcheen)

by Kate Bouey