If the tragic crash last week wasn’t reminder enough of the lingering danger of the Sea to Sky Highway, recalling the rockslide of 2008 might be.
This year marks a decade since a 10-metre high wall of an estimated 16,000 cubic metres of rock came down on the highway at Porteau Cove.
The arterial road was closed in both directions for about a week.
At first it was anticipated the slide would be cleared and the highway reopened quickly, according to news stories from the time. But that was not the case and so most people in Squamish had to wait.
Glacier Air did brisk business shuttling people who absolutely had to leave the corridor.
The slide happened following heavy rainfall after a long period of hot and dry weather, but slides can happen any time of year.
And there’s a history of slides at the same spot.
In the spring of 1991, a Porteau Bluffs rockslide killed a 43-year-old Squamish man when a boulder smashed through his windshield.
In February 1969 a rockslide near Porteau killed three young people.
Previously, in 1964, 1960 and 1956 rock came down on the rail lines at Porteau.
As we all know, extensive upgrades were done prior to the 2010 Olympic Games.
But we also know that the population and number of visitors in the corridor have changed dramatically since the last big rockfall in July of 2008.
According to provincial government statistics, 10,000 cars a day headed up the Sea to Sky in 2009, that number has to 19,000 per day.
Were a slide of the same magnitude of the 2008 incident were to happen today, it is likely there would be fatalities.
The provincial government says it has an extensive monitoring program that checks for potential landslides. And there’s no doubt the government throws money at our stretch of the highway. It has also invested in the emergency ferry docks Porteau and Darryl Bay in case the worst should happen and we are cut off again.
The bottom line though, is that while many of us think of it as an average road taking us from point A to point B, the reality is, it is a mountain pass.
Most of us would be on alert travelling through the Rockies by car or bike, but over time it seems we have lost some of the fear and thus, respect for the Sea to Sky Highway. If you travel the highway, keep your wits about you. Prepare for the conditions. It sounds dramatic, but also have a plan for if you get stuck in the city, due to a rockslide.
Ideally, we need to support proposals that bring well-paid jobs to Squamish so that more of us can stay in town and not travel the highway daily.
After all, it is more than just a trip down the road.
