Traffic on the Haines highway has been limited due to weather for the last week. Canadian crews have been busy clearing the snow, enough so that some convoys have been able to follow a pilot car through the pass on some days. On Saturday, multiple cars in the convoy crashed, but no one was injured.
A snowstorm shut down the Haines highway last week. The first travelers allowed back on the road slid and collided a short distance from the border.
Silva: “We’d gotten ahead of the big storm coming through, but certainly got caught behind it.”
Libby Silva was visiting from Idaho. She and her friend had planned to stay overnight in Whitehorse, but as the storm moved in and snow blocked the road, they found themselves holed up in a friend’s guest cabin in Haines Junction.
Silva: “We just played a lot of cards, it was a very Canadian-Alaskan experience, like you are a the mercy of the weather, we just had to go with it.”
After four days waiting, they found a way out. Road crews had finally cleared a path. Haines resident Kevin White was also waiting to come home.
White: “They were able to open up roughly one or two lanes, but it was not wide enough that they could allow free flowing traffic going in both directions, so typically what they do in that situation is they have a pilot car.”
The stranded travelers met the pilot car on Saturday morning. They formed a convoy , about 15 passenger vehicles and a handful of semi trucks. Silva says it was a clear day and a beautiful drive. The convoy spread out, and they didn’t see anyone for much of the long, slow drive. But as they approached the border, the visibility quickly diminished.
Silva: “It was pretty sudden that we realized that there were a bunch of cars in front of us and that everybody was braking.”
Silva says the road around them was suddenly a scene of chaos.
Silva: “There was a truck a few cars ahead of us that was sideways across the road. The carright behind that truck was totaled. The whole front bumper had fallen off and the airbags had gone off, there was a truck behind them that had been smashed into by the car in front of us, and that car was probably totaled.”
Silva says her friend was able to drive around the accident, and come to a stop on the other side of the scene. Not all cars following them were able to escape damage.
Silva: “There were at least a couple that had swerved into the snow berms and at least one or two cars that had been crashed into, or had crashed into somebody else. It was quite the scene.”
Silva says the travelers all got out of their vehicles, to check on each other. No one seemed injured, and she and her friend drove on to the border to alert authorities.
White says he arrived at the scene shortly after the collisions.
White: “Fortunately there was a big dually type truck that was able to help straighten out the truck that Jack knifed, and pulled, maybe there was another car that was lodged in the bank a little bit, and was able to help straighten everything out.”
A police officer in Haines Junction confirmed that on Saturday around noon, a few miles North from the border, multiple cars collided. He said no one was injured, but two cars were not driveable. He could not provide the number of damaged vehicles, but he said it was at least five, and likely a few more.
The officer said an incident occurred that provoked the accident, but at this point no fault has been assigned. He said the incident is still under investigation.
A Canadian border agent said he expects the highway will be fully open on Wednesday.
