Northern Alberta mayor, province look to future of highway maintenance after impassable late-April snowstorm

Wood Buffalo Mayor Sandy Bowman says a full investigation is needed after a snowstorm late last month left hundreds of people stranded on Highway 63.

In the weeks following a severe late-April snowstorm that stranded hundreds of people on a northern Alberta highway, one community now wants a “fulsome investigation” into what happened, and how to avoid it in the future.

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Mayor Sandy Bowman met with Alberta’s transportation minister Wednesday to discuss the snow dump that rendered Highway 63 treacherous.

That highway, which connects Edmonton to northeastern community Fort McMurray, was impassable for days due to a sudden onslaught of snow and wind that began April 23 and peaked the next day.

Surrounding locals quickly got to work, ensuring people stranded in their vehicles were not abandoned – delivering food, water and emergency supplies as contracted companies worked on towing and snow removal.

Wood Buffalo was one of the municipalities to lend a hand, although Bowman had made it clear it was depleting its own resources that would usually not fall under that highway jurisdiction.

On Wednesday, he said his priority is making sure the community is ready for next winter before deciding who will pay for the cost of tow trucks, heavy wreckers and other resources put toward saving Albertans.

“We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and once we get through that, an investigation, a report for council and the public, and then we’ll look at who’s going to pay the bill,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

Transportation minister Devin Dreeshen told reporters Tuesday that he’d been having conversations with Bowman about the cost of highway cleanup.

“I think the lessons learned of communication going forward is something that we can obviously improve on and work with Mayor Bowman,” he said Tuesday.

“But when it comes to who’s going to pay for it at the end of the day, that’s something that we’ll have to do.”

Wednesday’s meeting was “productive,” Dreeshen added, and had the two discussing the possibility of Wood Buffalo taking over maintenance for the section of Highway 63 that runs through Fort McMurray.

Emcon Services is the clearing contractor the province uses on Highway 63 and surrounding areas. At the time of the storm, Bowman publicly expressed a need to review whether the province’s contract could be improved to avoid being stranded during spring snowstorms.

The province previously said there was no problem with the actual response; rather, the timing and severity of the snowstorm had complicated cleanups.

“The provision of having full-time staff ends at that date. They’re obviously still providing, they’re still on standby if they actually have to go out with snow plows,” Dreeshen said, when asked about rumours Emcon’s snow-clearing contract had ended April 15.

“And obviously, with the weather forecast, they actually did increase. I think there were about five or 10 plows that they had ready to go. The biggest issue of 63 in that storm was the semi accidents that were obviously blocking the highway.”

He also says the province has completed a review of the highway maintenance contractor, which the province says is standard protocol after a major snow event.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg