A female driver avoided serious injury after her Toyota sedan slid off Highway 19 in icy conditions near the Highway 19A interchange in Parksville Monday morning, Feb. 19.
The vehicle was northbound on Highway 19 with the single occupant when it slid across the northbound on-ramp from Highway 19A, knocked over a light pole and continued partway down the snow-covered embankment.
“She’ll be OK,” Parksville Volunteer Fire Department assistant chief Mike Tisdelle said of the driver. “But she was a little shaken up.”
The woman was treated on scene by BC Ambulance personnel. The incident was also attended by Oceanside RCMP.
The crash took place a day after the Parksville Qualicum Beach region was covered by varying amounts of snow overnight Saturday into Sunday.
That snowfall was followed by the arrival of a cold-weather system that will likely cause the snow and potential icy road conditions to remain for much of the week.
Environment Canada is calling for sub-freezing overnight temperatures throughout the coming week as clear skies herald the arrival of an Arctic cold front on the heels of the snowstorm.
The days will be mostly sunny, but don’t expect a springtime feel to the air, said Lisa West, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“It’s expected to remain dry and cold through much of next week, with the high temperatures each day around one or two Celsius, with lows of minus five to minus seven Celsius at night,” West said.
“There is the possibility of flurries on Tuesday evening, but the forecast is for mainly dry and cold weather until the end of (the) week, when the temperatures will go back up to between two and five Celsius during the day.”
Environment Canada is calling for the possibility of additional flurries at the end of the week as the high pressure gives way to the next moisture-bearing front.
Saturday night’s snowstorm was preceded by a weather bulletin from Environment Canada that warned of accumulations of up to 10 cm of snow over the southern and eastern portions of Vancouver Island, specifically from Victoria to Nanaimo. But the system pushed upwards of 10 cm of snow, or more, to some parts of the Alberni Valley and well north of Qualicum Beach, as well.
— NEWS staff and Black Press files
