Automated pictures & daily video are back online

Technical Difficulties

 I had a hardware failure July 20 on the server that updates the hourly pictures and daily video.  There will be no updates until the hardware is replaced.  This is not related to the global IT outage.

Logging Skidder FTW - Town site re-opened

 Thanks to the Ministry of Transportation and our MLA, the town site is now mostly cleared.  Friday morning a contractor with a skidder was able to break through the piled snow and free the residents.  He started around 7am and by 10am had A Road cleared enough for single vehicle access.  By the end of the day, the entire town site was accessible with just over a vehicle's width cleared.

Today the contractor should be back to finish job.  We'll still need a grader at some point to push back the high banks, but at least we can now get to town for supplies.

Still Snowed-in

 The main road is now cleared, but unfortunately no luck for the town site.  Today some type of machine made minimal progress, then gave up.  With the snowfall this morning, the snow on the road in front of my house is now around 25" (63cms) deep. 

Map key: Green indicates road that has been cleared, red indicates road yet to be cleared, question mark indicates that I did not check that road.  All other roads are not normally cleared during winter.

Map

A Road looking south

A Road looking south

A Road looking north

A Road looking west

B Road looking south

B Road looking north

Snow-bruary

 It was a lacklustre winter up until a few weeks ago.  Much lower than average snowfall and tolerable temperatures prevailed with only a couple of short cold snaps.  This month took a big turn, with dump after dump of big snow days.  The result is an accumulation of snow higher than I've ever seen up here.

Despite the deluge, the plow has only visited once this month - February 5th.  We're currently snowed-in with about an average of 22" (56cm) of snow on the road in town.  The road should be cleared in the next couple of days, but when exactly is anyone's guess.  According to Dawson (company that holds the road maintenance contract), last week "the contract grader that we had hired was unable to punch into the town site".  I was not told how close to town they reached.  Until then, I just hope nobody in town has a medical emergency.

Snow depth on the road February 23rd

Snow depth on the road February 26th

  

Why the windows here are so high

Current local snow pack

Fire Season - Close (but not too close) calls

Update (Aug 25) - the status of both fires is "Out".  In fact, most of the fires from the evening of Aug 22 are either out or "Under Control".

 

Big lightning storm last night in the Western Cariboo.  Though far from a record, approximately 20 new fires ignited over the evening.  At around 8:45pm a fire was spotted approximately 3km SW of the townsite, above Stinson Lake.  It appeared to be out 30 minutes later, but it's impossible to tell from this distance.  Even a small wildfire can lay dormant for weeks before flaring up.  There is also a second fire listed on the BC Wildfire page, but this could be the same fire reported twice.

At 5:30am I could not see either fire.  I expect a helicopter visit to the area sometime this morning.

New fires August 22

Approximate location in relation to Hendrix Lake

 

One of the countless lightning strikes in the area

Pardon the interruption

 Due to a hardware upgrade, there may be a few camera outages over the next week.  Please be patient while I squash the bugs.