REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Search teams will be back Monday morning on the eastern British Columbia mountain where a massive avalanche claimed the lives of two men over the weekend, RCMP said.
Although investigators have confirmed all persons on accumulated lists have been accounted for, it’s possible people were on the mountain and not registered, said RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.
"We don’t think that anyone is left behind, but the search teams will be sent back out to make sure," said Moskaluk.
All surface debris was removed from the slide area on Sunday to make it easier for avalanche dog teams to continue their work, Moskaluk said.
On Sunday, the two men who died in the Boulder Mountain avalanche were identified by family members as Calgary-based oilpatch workers Shay Allan Snortland and Kurtis Reynolds.
Both men, who worked for an oil and gas firm specializing in transporting gas drilling rigs, died during the annual Big Iron Shootout – an unsanctioned snowmobile event – around 3:30 p.m. local time Saturday.
About 200 people had gathered on the Revelstoke, B.C., mountain to watch the event when the avalanche hit, killing the men and injuring at least 30 people.
Survivors told harrowing stories of being swept up by the falling snow as others described the chaos and panic as they searched for their friends.
Witnesses said the avalanche was triggered by a snowmobiler "high marking" as part of a competition between riders on the souped-up machines to see who could drive the furthest up the mountain.
"It just completely wiped out a group of 150 or 200 snowmobilers," said Greg Blair, who saw the avalanche coming and fled on his snowmobile. "Everybody just disappeared – tossed, thrown, taken with the snow. The amount of snow that came down was unbelievable."
The slide was so powerful it "scrambled the machines and wrapped them around each other," according to one eyewitness.
Witnesses said they heard people screaming as they frantically searched amid the wreckage of snowmobiles littered in the snow.
"You could see people’s arms, legs and heads sticking out of the snow," said Calgarian Dewinton Blair, who was at the mountain with his brother and uncle. "They were yelling for help and trying to get out. There were a lot of broken legs, arms and wrists."
As the chaos subsided, survivors organized a line and worked methodically to find missing people, sticking probes into the snow and digging.
Four people were seriously injured, including two critically, and taken to other area hospitals, such as in Kamloops, B.C., where one remained with a broken neck.
Nineteen people had been released from hospital, police said.
Moskaluk said Sunday the avalanche was definitely "human triggered" and is being investigated by the Mounties and the B.C. Coroners Service.
Authorities, who spent most of the weekend accounting for victims and survivors, have just begun to look into what happened but are promising a full investigation.
Many of the estimated 200 people, including Snortland and Reynolds, were drawn to the mountain by the Big Iron Shootout. The "extreme high-marking" event sees snowmobilers push their machines as high up on the slope as possible, a practice known to trigger avalanches.
The event is held on Crown land, which means anyone can access it. Moskaluk said the RCMP wants to speak with anyone who helped organize the Big Iron Shootout that was being held at the alpine area called Turbo Bowl.
The Canadian Avalanche Centre had issued a special warning on Friday that backcountry snow conditions were "very dangerous."
"Conditions in the mountains for the past six or seven weeks have been very tricky," Karl Klassen, a spokesman for the Centre, told reporters at a Sunday news conference. "The snowpack is still very unstable."
Revelstoke is located in eastern British Columbia, approximately 550 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and 400 kilometres west of Calgary.
There have been at least 10 avalanches in the Kootenay-Boundary area since Friday, as snow continues to pile up, creating weak layers in the snowpack that can cause major slides.
Comments