Winter storms have had their toll on all of southern BC. There have been almost non-stop "weather events" for the past couple of weeks, but the most recent was a doozy.
It started later on Tuesday: light snow with the attendant "heavy snowfall warning". We'd made a quick trip to Nelson, Catherine was playing bridge in Balfour and the roads were still in fine winter driving condition. By evening, it was snowing heavily and building up faster than anything we'd seen before. Somewhere around 2 am the power went off; it was still snowing.
When daylight arrived on Wednesday, it was clear that we were going to have a day filled with little else but snow removal. This time, however, the snow was deep (somewhere around 30 cm or 1 ft), wet and heavy. Some 6 hours later I had the driveway cleared. Our road was plowed later in the afternoon but the power didn't come on until nearly 8 pm. We'd been warned not to expect it until sometime Thursday. Not such a big inconvenience - most people here heat with wood. Kudos to the Fortis BC work crews for managing this difficult job in these conditions. I also started shoveling snow off the roofs of the smaller sheds here, not being completely confident that they would handle the weight. It was also starting to rain, adding water to the already heavy snow.
Thursday morning it was still raining and we had news that our little mountain community was completely cut off. In short, there is no way out, not that we feel the need to leave very often. There are other roads closed throughout BC: the usual collection of avalanches and mud slides, but there is no access to our part of the Koots.
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