The highway connecting Tofino and Ucluelet to the east coast of Vancouver Island has been closed or down to single lane traffic most of the day after a semi-trailer crashed into a telephone pole, taking down transmission lines that provide power to the west coast.
A semi-trailer took out a pole approximately 29 kilometres east of the Ucluelet Junction on Highway 4, leaving the lines hanging between two other poles, BC Hydro spokesperson Ted Olynyk said.
“We had to do major repairs. Fortunately we didn’t have to have a (power) outage,” he added.
Fire, two ambulances and police also attended the scene. The semi-trailer driver walked away from the incident.
READ: Driver ‘OK’ after semi-trailer crashes on Highway 4
The accident happened in the early-morning hours of Tuesday, Aug. 1, but Olynyk didn’t know when repairs began on the downed lines.
“It was tight working conditions so we had to take a road closure to finish repairs,” he said.
Olynyk said he wasn’t sure if the work was complete, as BC Hydro employees were in a remote site and it was difficult to reach them, however DriveBC was reporting at 2:15 p.m. that there is a 30-minute delay.
This was the third time in two months that accidents have caused closures on Highway 4 between Port Alberni and the wet coast communities of Tofino and Ucluelet.
