Highway 17 likely will re-open tomorrow morning after heavy weekend rains pounded Northwestern Ontario, forcing the closure of the highway in four places, Thunder Bay OPP Sgt. Hal Lewis said yesterday.
Nipigon Bay Resort owner Colleen Glad said she hasn’t seen anything like it in 40 years.
The Cypress River overflowed, closing a bridge on Highway 17 east of Nipigon.
About 300 uprooted trees were swept down the Cypress River, washing up on the shore of Nipigon Bay, Glad said.
Torrential rains normally seen in the spring also caused closures between Nipigon and Schreiber at Kama Hill, Pays Plat, and Walker Lake, Lewis said.
Police, fearing motorists would drive around the barricades, called in off-duty officers to staff the sites.
The damage wasn’t restricted to Highway 17—the major route across Northern Ontario.
Highway 628, connecting Highway 11/17 and the town of Red Rock, was closed Saturday, Lewis said. And one lane of Highway 11 near Beardmore was closed Saturday for one-and-a-half hours.
Gravel River Resort owner Ray Lankkanen said a foot-deep bucket was “over the top” by the time the rain stopped Saturday.
CPR workers hauled gravel in railway cars from Thunder Bay to the Cypress River junction after the river washed away to fill under the tracks.
The railway has since re-opened, Lankkanen said.
As well, workers had to open the gates of a hydro dam north of Terrace Bay to prevent the water from flooding the dam, Lewis said.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
