The snowbanks along Highway 21 between Port Elgin and Goderich are over 12 feet tall in spots. That might explain why it took nearly eight days and hundreds of hours of snowplows, snowblowers, payloaders, and dump trucks moving that snow to get the highway fully reopened, as of 9 a.m. Monday.
“It has been it’s an exceptionally large amount of snow that we’ve received. It seems to be coming nonstop. And I know a lot of people are fed up with it. It’s not something we can do anything about it. We’ve got to put that snow somewhere. We’ve got to close the roads when it’s unsafe,” said Huron County OPP Const. Craig Soldan.
There was growing impatience over the pace of reopening Highway 21, especially a stretch between Goderich and Amberley. But while the snow stopped, high winds kept filling in the southbound lanes of Highway 21, limiting the road to one lane, or no lanes at times.
Snowplows couldn’t move the snow, so massive snowblowers were brought in and worked around the clock to try and get the roadway reopened.
Still, some drivers remained impatient. In southern Bruce County alone, 18 drivers were charged with driving on a closed road during the last seven days.
“When you see an emergency road closure sign, it is there for a good reason, and you may not see the reason why. It could be a road clearing crew down the road that has large equipment. It could be a tow truck that has to be positioned sideways across the highway to remove vehicles. It could be a drifted lane that completely obstructs…traffic. And those are things you can’t see from the road closure sign, necessarily,” said Soldan.
While Highway 21 is open today, with 12-foot snowbanks lining the roadway from Port Elgin to Grand Bend, a cold snap and some high winds will cause blowing snow and possibly fill the roadway in again.
Soldan said winter-weary residents should be prepared for more road closures before winter leaves us.
“We do try to keep our updates as current as we can, and we usually use X as one of our social media formats to update with road closures and road reopenings. So, if people want to, log on to X and take a look, that’s where we try to feed that information,” said Soldan.
In the meantime, Highway 21’s towering snowbanks will be somewhat of tourist attraction, as people stop to revel in the sheer might of Mother Nature.
