A detour around the Highway 4 closure came too late for Ken Mcbrine, who was on his way from Port Alberni to Nanaimo for surgery Wednesday morning when he was turned around.
Mcbrine, who is in his early 80s, was scheduled for surgery to remove a malignant tumour in his ear, said his nephew, Brandon Stellaard, who was travelling with him. “It’s not life or death at this point. It is difficult, though, because it is a malignant tumor, so it will spread if he can’t get it out,” Stellaard said.
Highway 4 was shut down Tuesday because of debris from a wildfire burning above the road near Cameron Lake. A four-hour detour on forest-service roads and privately owned industrial roads via the Bamfield area and Lake Cowichan wasn’t announced until Wednesday at noon.
Mcbrine’s surgery was scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday. Stellaard said it was difficult to get information about alternative routes before the detour was announced by the province.
They were allowed by a flagger to pass a checkpoint on the highway and told they would be able to use the Horne Lake Connector, which goes north from Port Alberni around the high side of Horne Lake and intersects with Highway 19 north of the Qualicum area. The road is gated and controlled by Mosaic Forest Management
When they reached the gate, a security agent said they couldn’t use the road, Stellaard said.
“It sucked because we got our hopes up,” he said.
Mcbrine had to call the hospital and cancel his surgery at the last minute. He’s now waiting to reschedule and hoping the highway reopens, because the rough condition of the detour will be difficult for Mcbrine to endure, Stellaard said.
Mosaic did not respond to an email but the company’s voicemail message says the road is restricted to emergency and authorized personnel only.
With the main detour temporarily closed Friday while a vehicle was retrieved from a lake, Tofino Mayor Dan Law said supplies are continuing to make it to the west coast of the Island.
Most deliveries come to Tofino either in the early morning or at night, so the closure of the detour Friday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. wasn’t likely to affect the town’s supply chain, he said.
While no timeline has been provided for reopening highway, Law said he’s expecting the closure to last days, not weeks.
Laurie Gehrke, general manager of the Ucluelet Co-op, said the grocery store received a standard 35,000-pound delivery of dry goods Thursday evening and she was expecting a dairy delivery Friday evening and produce today.
Deliveries are continuing to come in but they are delayed by about six hours because of the lengthy detour, she said.
“Things are stocked OK, except for produce and dairy. They’re pretty bare,” she said.
The store is limiting customers to purchasing no more than two of any item for the time being, Gehrke said. The restrictions will be lifted as soon as the delivery schedule returns to normal.
Gehrke said the first couple of days of the highway closure were busy in the store, with some customers panic buying, but things have calmed down.
“I want people to know not to panic. We have lots of food. We have lots of availability. Just please shop like you normally would. Don’t overbuy,” she said.
The store is not currently considering deliveries by air or water, but backup options are available in case the situation worsens, Gehrke said. Those emergency plans were created during the Kennedy Hill construction project that saw daily closures of the highway, but they weren’t needed, she said.
The store received deliveries by air when flooding in the Fraser Valley prevented supplies from reaching the Island, Gehrke said.
LifeLabs has chartered a seaplane in response to the highway closure, flying specimens from Port Alberni to Victoria. Flights began Wednesday and are ongoing, the company said in a statement.
