re

The 12-year-old girl seated by this window was the only person injured in this collision Jan. 26.
pw ae a non-instructional day in local elementary schools, the bus was carrying only six
children.

There were a lot of smiling
faces Friday morning at the
scene of a collision between a
loaded logging truck and a
school bus. Only one student
was injured, and the injuries
were minor. ;

The accident occurred on

Highway 16 at Gooden Rd. just
east of Kleanza Creek shortly
after 8 a.m. According to two
Thornhill youths who were on
the bus, the driver had missed a
turn onto a side road and gone
down the highway to another
road to turn around. The bus

Sto rm ==" continued from page A1

North Coast operations
manager Ken Rensby explains
that North Coast works under a
list of priorities laid down by the
Ministry of Highways. The first
priority are the main highways,
particularly the airport hills and
Onion Lake hill, and these are
followed by the main rural roads
down to the least-travelled dead-
end roads.
North Coast road foreman, says
that in the Terrace area alone
they had eight graders and seven
trucks working the area. This in-
cludes their own equipment as
well as every piece of private
equipment available in the area.

Baker explains that even with
this sizeable crew on the job,
during periods of peak snowfall
some rural areas are going to ex-
perience some degree of frustra-
tion. When the rate of snowfall
exceeds the capability of the
highway crews, he says, it be-
comes necessary to move extra
equipment to their first priority
— the main highways. And this
sometimes means temporarily
abandoning more localized' ef-

-forts. No matter how. large a

Clarence Baker, |

crew you assemble, says Baker

— a past Highways employee

with at least 20 years experience

this is a problem that has

always existed and one that will
probably never be!solved.

B.C. Hydro line supervisor
Howare Chafin says Hydro
crews also coped with the storm
well, He says the storm caused a
total of 20 power outages in the
area last Saturday: but most were
minor in nature. The worst, he
says, involved the bench area
where trees on Twedle and Halli-
well fell under their load of
snow, taking power lines with
them. This outage lasted about
3% hours. Next to this was a
series of two power outages in
Old Remo caused by snow load
on the power lines. Chafin says
that five Hydro employees
worked 16 hours on Saturday to
deal with snow-related prob-
lems. One area that was a sur-
prise, Chafin says, was the Nass
Valley which had no outages
with the exception of one in Kin-
colith that occurred Friday and
was repaired in about two hours
Saturday morning.

was in the process of backing
out when the logging truck came
around a curve. The truck was
moving very slowly when it
struck the bus; the forward end
of the logs penetrated a side win-
dow of the bus.

Cpl. Jim Porteus, head of the
Terrace RCMP highway patrol
section, declined to confirm or
deny that description pending
completion of the investigation.

The 12-year-old Thornhill girl
who was injured was sitting next
to the window, the boys said.

ending

mation will be available untu
next week.

She was taken to Mills Memorial
Hospital, treated for minor in-
juries, held for observation and

later released.

There were only six passengers
on the bus — elementary schools
were closed for a professional
development day.

The bus driver was Uli Mendel
and the logging was driven by
Roy Clifford.

On Monday Terrace RCMP
spokesman Cst. Don Oldham
said the accident is still under in-

vestigation and no further infor-

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eeeet rary ent renee

We've
Touched
the Heart of
Someone
You Know.

B.C. Heart
Foundation

Ce nen gee ameriatere men Ames eam EE ee oe