INNISFAIL – The snow and cold that made life and driving miserable since the beginning of the month is leaving for sunnier and warmer days.
Since March 1, the region has mostly experienced the full fury of winter – plenty of snow and cold temperatures down to -25 C – but beginning Wednesday, March 7 the region will experience above zero temperatures for at least the next two weeks with highs forecasted to go up to 11 C by March 15.
The blast from Mother Nature made driving on local streets and regional highways hazardous.
However, RCMP in the region are reporting that while there were accidents locally and on regional highways there were no serious injuries.
Innisfail RCMP detachment commander Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme said his members were “pretty lucky” as far as any serious accidents happening in his jurisdiction.
“We had some vehicles sliding into the ditch and stuff like that but we didn't have any major accidents that I'm aware of anyways in our little stretch,” said Ihme. “We're pretty lucky because we only have a very small portion of the QEII the way it runs in our detachment area.”
And it was the same story from regional RCMP whose jurisdiction is the QEII from Highway 11A at the north end of Red Deer down south to Highway 582.
“We've been lucky. I want to say people have been very careful on the road, probably learned from past incidents on the Highway 2. But drivers have been very, very careful in the last week,” said RCMP Acting Sgt. Eric Ponton of Alberta RCMP Traffic.
He said just for the Innisfail area since March 1 there were only four collisions reported to his office.
“There were no injuries. All were just property damage, and many of those were very minor,” said Ponton.
“In our jurisdiction we had 14 collisions. Only one with minor injuries during that time from the stretch from 11A all the way to 582,” Ponton added. “I was pleasantly surprised.”
