The rising flood waters in southern Alberta and the resulting highway closures brought extra traffic to Jasper last weekend, and with that traffic came two accidents, including one that resulted in a death and five-hour road closure.
The fatal collision between a SUV and a semi happened Friday evening at 6:15 p.m., 21 kilometres east of Jasper on Highway 16. The driver of the SUV, an Edmonton man in his 30s, was dead on the scene. His three passengers were transported to Seton Healthcare Centre and the Hinton Healthcare Centre with unknown injuries. The driver of the semi was uninjured.
As of Monday, the passengers were all in stable condition, according to Const.. Fraser Bjornson.
An RCMP investigation showed that the collision occurred when the driver of the SUV crossed the centre line into the path of the westbound semi. Although the semi driver attempted to avoid the collision, the SUV still hit the semi’s rear axle.
Highway 16 was closed while the RCMP investigated and cleaned up the debris. This caused a huge lineup of cars at the gates and on the highway where emergency responders had set up a roadblock. That closure lasted well into the night, with the roads opening at 11 p.m.
“When we shut the highway down for those accidents, there were some long lineups,” said Const. Ryan Gardiner. “Normally the highway isn’t that busy. The flooding is definitely impacting us. Now that Highway 1 is closed, all of the heavy truck traffic that’s going from east to west or west to east is coming through here.”
The flooding, which started last week, has 23 communities in a state of emergency and has closed down numerous roads and highways.
On Sunday, Jasper RCMP saw a second collision just outside of town, near the Jasper Cemetery, at about 5 p.m.
“That was a truck versus a SunDog Tour Bus,” Gardiner said. Like in the accident two days previous, the female driver of the truck crossed the centre line, striking the side of the tour bus. The impact of that collision caused the truck’s wheel to come off, resulting in another accident.
“Another vehicle hit the tire—even a tire can cause a significant amount of damage,” said Bjornson, noting that all three vehicles were towed from the scene.
The truck driver had minor injuries, while everyone else left the scene uninjured. That accident closed Highway 16 for about an hour.
Gardiner said of the accidents that it’s a matter of busy highways and drivers taking their eyes off the road.
“Whether they’re looking at the mountains or they’re texting on their phone or doing something other than what they’re supposed to be doing, people get distracted. There’s a million and one things in vehicles now to distract us from driving.
“People need to pay attention.”
Flooding creates juggling act for hotels
As well as increased collisions, the floods in Banff, Canmore, Calgary and other parts of southern Alberta also affected who was able to make it to Jasper and who was able to leave, according to Jeff Bartlett of Tourism Jasper.
There were people who were meant to travel to Banff National Park or to fly out of Calgary, who were stranded in Jasper and there were plenty of visitors on the other side who couldn’t make it to Jasper.
That meant a lot of juggling for Jasper’s hotels, as the visitors who were stuck in Jasper looked for rooms and the visitors stuck in southern Alberta cancelled their reservations, creating spaces for the people already here.
“I think every hotel in town was sold out, but to be honest, they were supposed to be anyway,” said Bartlett, noting that many of the visitors in town were all just trying to sort out their travel plans. “The Visitor Information Centre was a madhouse, with everyone asking questions on how to juggle their vacations.”
Bartlett said the VIC staff did an incredible job of finding visitors places to stay by keeping on top of hotels with sudden openings.
