dennis.ca

After what seems like several weeks of mild weather in Ottawa, Friday brought with it heavy winds, freezing rain, and blowing snow. Freezing rain fell overnight and into Friday morning. Road conditions were fair in the morning, but as time passed very heavy winds and blowing snow made travel nothing short of treacherous on local highways. The afternoon forecast called for a flash freeze, which isn't something you'd particularly want to travel in.

By noon the sun had come out, the temperate had dropped, and the winds continued to rise. I sent my team home from work in the name of poor weather conditions, but it was really more of a 'lazy Friday' bonus rather than a serious safety concern on my part. Shortly thereafter the wind really picked up. A co-worker and I were standing at a window trying to figure out if the blowing snow was actually falling or being picked up from the ground. Powder was gusting completely horizontally which caused complete whiteout conditions. This, I suspect, is about the time when things got out of hand on the 417, which is a major highway running from Ottawa to Montreal.

Just east of the city, the whiteout resulted in a 40+ car pileup. The numbers still aren't completely clear, but at least four people were killed and many more injured. I can't recollect anything comparable since I've been driving, except of course the other 30-car pileup that occured just west of the city around the same time.

"It was a complete whiteout; like a white sheet had been taken over the windshield of the car ... The drivers drove into this white fog. Within seconds, they crashed, one into another into another."

I sometimes often complain about the bad drivers here, but when something like this happens you just hope that everyone survives.