Work is progressing on restoring Highway 20 to traffic west of the Sheep Creek Bridge after a washout early Monday.
Todd Hubner is the District Manager of Transportation and Infrastructure for the Cariboo.
“We managed to dewater the majority of the site late last night. We do have 4 excavators on site at the present time and we’re starting to basically to prepare the site for future embankment construction.”
Hubner says they are anticipating that the work will take 3-4 days once they get the site in suitable condition to start and that the goal is to get Highway 20 reestablished to traffic sometime this weekend.
He says they believe a number of contributing factors including a number of natural springs in the area and a high ground water table, led to the washout which left a 150 metre-wide gap in the roadway.
A detour via Creek Road, Buckskin Road, West Fraser (South) Road, Chilcotin Meldrum Road to Hwy 20 was established and opened to traffic Monday afternoon at 4 pm.
“It’s performing well; it’s well signed, there is traffic control out there. We do ask for people’s patience in ensuring that they are abiding by the directions of the traffic control to drive accordingly,” says Hubner.