INNISFAIL – Alberta RCMP are reporting 52 collisions on Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary on Wednesday, the first day of the ongoing early spring snowstorm.
RCMP Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said three of those collisions resulted in injuries, with additional motor vehicle accidents being reported.
“With the snow continuing to fall, RCMP expect poor driving conditions to continue,” said Savinkoff in a Thursday, March 21 media release. “If you do not have to travel, please stay home.
“If you must travel, RCMP want to advise motorists to use extreme caution, slow down and maintain an increased distance between yourself and other drivers.”
In the Innisfail area, Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme, detachment commander of Innisfail RCMP, said the “majority of the problems” his police officers encountered on March 20 occurred between 7 a.m. and noon.
“Highway 2 was really bad between Penhold and south of us. For those few hours the highway was impossible for a while as there was a jack-knife on Antler Hill,” said Ihme, adding his police officers that responded had four accident files from their area of coverage on Highway 2 between Highway 42 near Penhold and Highway 587 at Bowden.
"There's a few other collisions and sliding caused by poor driving and traffic conditions but for the most part people drove to the road conditions,” said Ihme.
Innisfail Fire Department Chief Gary Leith said he was travelling to work in Innisfail, southbound on Highway 2 at around 8 a.m., when he witnessed two semi-trucks jack-knife out of control on Antler Hill, just north of Innisfail.
Leith said the driving conditions were “poor” with ice built up on Highway 2 coming down off Antler Hill.
He said his units responded with RCMP.
“One was hung up in the median and on the wire and was completely blocking Highway 2, other than the shoulder. It blocked both lanes of Highway 2, southbound on Antler Hill. One semi had to take defensive action and drove into the field on the west side of Highway 2,” said Leith. “The shoulder was allowing some traffic through but certainly when we were able to get equipment in to move it we had to stop traffic at that point.”
“We provided traffic control,” added Leith. “At one point we had to stop traffic on Highway 2 for about 14 minutes while the recovery company came in and moved the semi that was blocking Highway 2.”
He said there were no injuries.
Leith said his department was not called to deal with any other calls while dealing with the Antler Hill accident but later another came in from east of Innisfail on Highway 590.
He said two vehicles were involved with no injuries.
“RCMP were dispatched to it because of the damage to the vehicles,” said Leith.
