It has been nearly four months since widespread rain, washouts and flooding hit the interior and southwest corner of BC.
Many of the province’s major highways, including Highway 1 and the Coquihalla, have been restored with temporary repairs and planning underway for permanent fixes.
However, work continues on Hwy 8 which stretches north of Merritt towards Spences Bridge before merging onto the Trans-Canada Highway.
The team began with the 20 sites that were damaged in November but are now working on 23 sites overall.
Temporary repairs have been completed at six locations while construction starts on another nine.
BC’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) is planning repairs on the remaining eight sites with work beginning in the near future.
The temporary construction and emergency access is anticipated to be completed in the spring.
The phase of the work will be “on sites where construction will be particularly complex due to the extent of the damage and the current site conditions,” explains the MOTI newsletter.
An example of the challenging conditions is a 400-metre section of Hwy 8, located about 21 km east of Spences Bridge, which was completely washed out following November’s floods.
“The steep slopes of this section of the highway made repairs challenging to navigate, as crews had to work at a safe distance while repairing the highway,” reads the newsletter.
“Crews work carefully … to repair and restore this section of the highway as quickly and safely as possible.”
This section and the 3 Mile Bridge were about halfway done at the end of January.
