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By CJME News

Trans-Canada closed east of Whitewood due to storm, other highways affected

Apr 24, 2022 | 5:08 PM

The clean-up is underway in the southeast after another vicious blast of winter ripped through the area.

As of Sunday morning, the winter storm warnings hovering over region the had been lifted.

Environment Canada meteorologist, David Baggaley, says conditions are expected to improve throughout the day as the Colorado low moves further east.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

As for snowfall totals, the weather office doesn’t believe the storm ended up producing nearly as much precipitation as what was originally expected.

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Around a foot of snow is expected to have fallen in some places throughout the southeast, but Baggaley says they are having trouble getting exact totals because of a lack of information being made available.

“Our Estevan station seems to have had a power outage,” he said. “That’s our main source of data.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had contact.”

SaskPower has been working on getting the power back up and running throughout the region, but there is no timeline yet for when it will be restored for everyone.

“Crews are currently conducting a comprehensive damage assessment following a powerful spring storm that hit the province’s southeast corner,” a release by the crown corporation said. “High winds and precipitation have caused significant damage in the region, knocking power out to customers from as far southeast as the US-Manitoba border and as far north as the Broadview area.

“As of 7:30 a.m., 24,460 customers are without power.”

The release went on to say that road conditions and high wind speeds are greatly slowing the restoration efforts and that additional crews from neighbouring districts are providing help in getting power back up and running.

“Several larger transmission lines have sustained damage, causing widespread outages in the region,” the release said. “SaskPower will be utilizing helicopter patrols to conduct an aerial assessment of the damage.

“Due to the scale of the damage sustained from this storm, and the weather slowing crews from conducting repairs, some customers could remain without power for an extended period of time.”

Many highways were in rough shape on Sunday.

The Highway Hotline showed a portion of Highway 1 closed from Whitewood to the Manitoba border.

While roads around Carlyle, Estevan and Oxbow had recommendations put in place for people to avoid travelling in the region.