It was a busy night for RCMP and other emergency services as Saskatchewan dealt with the province’s first major snow storm of the year on Wednesday.
For much of the evening, drivers on the province’s major highways were forced to deal with snow, freezing rain and winds of close to 100 kilometres per hour.
Saskatchewan RCMP spokesperson Corporal Rob King said the bad weather resulted in a number of accidents.
“One-hundred-and-eighty-two MVAs (motor vehicle accidents) reported to us,” he said. “That could be anything from vehicles striking other vehicles to veering off into the ditch. I would guess that both those numbers were probably double that because I know as our members were going out to one vehicle reported in the ditch, they might find two or three more.”
A number of roads were closed and the department of highways issued weather warnings across the province due to the poor conditions.
Nevertheless, King said this did not prevent some drivers from venturing out.
“It was a very bad storm and unfortunately people were out on the highway and not staying home when they should have been.”
King said many of the vehicles that went off the road were stranded overnight as highways crews and tow trucks were unable to get out because of the poor weather conditions.
He said the areas hardest hit by the storm were the corridor from Saskatoon south down to Regina and the northeast section of the province.
SaskPower is also reporting 80,000 customers from 100 different communities across the province are still without electricity.
With files from Michael Joel-Hansen
(PHOTO: Courtesy Saskatchewan RCMP.)