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Highway 21 closed again Saturday |
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 Blowing and drifting snow on Bruce County Road 7, north of Ripley  | ||||
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It was a typical Bruce County winter day on Saturday. Overnight snow had left a perfect coating for the wind to pick up and blow around. Highway 21, between Amberley and Port Elgin, was closed yet again for the entire day - 4:30 a.m. until about 4 p.m. That stretch of Highway 21 had already been closed from Tuesday night to Thursday (Feb. 8-10 ), causing school closures, bus cancellations, and forcing events to be cancelled. South Bruce OPP constable Kevin Martin, community services officer, says the reason for the highway closure is quite simple. The Highway Traffic Act, Section 134, gives officers the authority to close a road when there is imminent threat of property damage or harm to a person."Along the shoreline with Highway 21, we close the road more than our counterparts in other areas because of the high wind, blowing snow and poor visibility," says Martin. "Along with that are what some people call 'fingers' which are drifts of snow that move from the west side of the highway to the east, meaning the southbound lane would be affected first." Martin says that people often wonder why the road is closed when it's sunny out. "We just came off a two-day closure of Highway 21," he says. "Most of the time, except for the storm day, the skies were clear, but the accumulation of snow we've had this winter created a large bank on the west side. That leaves our plows with very little room to plow new snow, so they call in a blower to clear the area where the plow deposits snow. That finally happened and we had our highway back in service." Until Saturday, of course, when it was closed again.
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