NEAR KEREMEOS — Highway 3 was re-opened Wednesday afternoon about 9 km west of Keremeos following a rock slide Tuesday.
Angelique Wood, a Hedley resident, was on her way to Penticton when she noticed a rock on the eastbound lane, the farthest lane from the hillside.
“We swerved and kept going,” says Wood. “I think what happened was the rock must have been bouncing because for the rock to be where it was, it must have been gathering steam.”
Had Wood arrived any later, she would have been trapped in a road closure. The highway re-opened four hours later to single lane alternating traffic.
“So I sat there for 2.5 hours after (the provincial government) spent all that time and money fixing it. I bet there weren’t that many people who were happy about sitting in that line up yesterday,” says Marie Jacobs.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says the recent downpour may have contributed to the rock fall, but an exact cause has not been determined.
Rockslides closed the same section of the highway three times last year.
The first happened in January 2014 and it was the most severe, injuring a woman and damaging two vehicles.
Last November, the ministry built a 3 metre high concrete wall. And just last month, it finished excavating 700 metres of slope, creating a wider ditch to catch rocks.
The Ministry spokesperson says the majority of Tuesday’s rockfall was contained within the retaining structure.
But some of the rock did land on the highway.
The local regional district director says he’d like to see more done.
The Ministry’s geotechnical engineers are reviewing the recent improvements, investigating if enough has been done to prevent rock falls from impacting the highway.
Meanwhile, Highway 3 was shut down entirely at the west entrance to manning Park, as well, Tuesday into Wednesday when power lines blew over the roadway. The debris was cleared Wednesday afternoon.
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