Ten days after a wildfire forced the closure of Highway 4, businesses and services in Port Alberni, B.C., are getting creative to find ways to keep the city operating.
The critical highway is the only paved land route connecting the city of more than 25,000 to the rest of Vancouver Island, and according to the Ministry of Transportation will remain shut down until at least June 24.
Officials have implemented a detour route on an industrial logging road that’s allowed critical supplies to get through, but it have warned people to avoid it unless travel is absolutely essential.
On Thursday, forklift crews were busy unloading a barge from the city’s waterfront, one sign of a solution that some in the community are hoping is a sign of things to come.
“The detour kind of woke everyone up to ‘there’s a port in Port Alberni,” Joe Spears, general manager of San Terminals Ltd. said.
The San Group holds a long-term lease on the Port Alberni Port Authority, he said, and has long had plans to build the facility into a short-haul shipping hub and perhaps even one day accommodate cruise ships.
The road closure has accelerated those plans, and Spears said the company has the potential — with support from senior levels of government — to convert the facility to handle freight for both retail and industrial businesses.
“Even after the fire and the road probably opens, this is a much better, environmentally-friendly opportunity with short-sea shipping,” he said.
The barge currently in port was able to bring in a critical 15-tonne motor and essential inputs for the Catalyst pulp mill.
On the way out, it will carry locally-processed wood chips to market from a San Group mill. It’s a lifeline, according to San Group co-owner, who said the road closure has affected 1,000 direct employees and another 1,000 contractors.
“We cannot afford to let our product sit for more than five days, 10 days. If it’s 30 days… we’ve got three mills operating, you’ve got millions and millions of dollars of cargo sitting there and the cashflow doesn’t support that,” he said.
“We need some sort of solution with the province and with the federal government to come up with a plan. This is 2,000 employees; that’s a lot of employees.”
While industry is looking at solutions by sea, the health authority has turned to the skies to ensure Port Alberni and Tofino’s hospitals remain staffed.
Max Jajszczok, emergency operations centre director for the road closure response and the Island Health director tasked with managing rural and remote hospital strategy, said dozens of doctors, nurses and support staff from across the health authority have volunteered to fly into the community to help.
“There have been no significant service interruptions, specifically for the emergency departments at West Coast General and Tofino general hospitals,” he said.
The health authority is working with several airlines and is now running four return flights to Port Alberni daily, with more than 200 flights in the last nine days.
It has also arranged for a temporary alternative chemotherapy location at the West Coast General Hospital for patients unable to get out of the community for treatment.
Chemotherapy medications are being prepared in Nanaimo, he said, then transported to Port Alberni with staff to those who need it.
Other patients in need of non-urgent surgeries and treatments are being offered help to rebook them if it makes sense.
The detour land route is also getting used to transport critical supplies, including food for local food banks and community services.
Alex Counsell, director of operations with Nanaimo’s Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank, said his organization typically makes a weekly delivery to Port Alberni, but hasn’t been able to get in since June 6.
“We put our heads together and were like, ‘Should we try the detour? Yeah, let’s try it,'” he said.
“We’re pretty confident our trucks can make the journey. It’s important to help wherever you can.”
The team is hoping to deliver to five local agencies on Thursday, as well as make a major pickup from Port Alberni’s Quality Foods.
If things go well, they’ll repeat the trip next week.
“If food banks aren’t getting the food they usually get, neither will the people they serve, right?” he said.
“It definitely makes a difference to get some food to Port Alberni.”
While the province is hoping to have Highway 4 reopened to single-lane alternating traffic within the next 10 days, the Ministry of Transportation said it will likely take until mid-July before the route is fully reopened — and that date remains fluid.
That’s on top of the ongoing challenges with the winding, two-lane route, notorious for closures due to crashes or issues like small landslides.
But the crisis has some, like Spears, bullish on the potential for a change.
“The people in the Alberni Valley like to solve problems and sailors and mariners like to solve problems, and this is a problem and its going to be solved,” he said.
“This is an opportunity to showcase and prepare for resilience in our community.”
— with files from Kylie Stanton