The latest winter storm has shut down roads across the region, and made any type of travel a scary situation.
Dresden resident Sarah Fraleigh-Bulckaert said today’s drive home from Chatham “was by far the worse this winter.
“I didn’t think it could get worse than the storm in early January and I drove at night then,” she said.
The route Fraleigh-Bulckaert took went from McNaughton Avenue to Prince Albert, to Countryview Line, to Centre Side Road to Base Line and into Dresden
“I had no idea what side of the road I was on and how much snow I was driving into,” Fraleigh-Bulckaert said, adding this was at 3 p.m. in full daylight along Base Line Road. “I was constantly terrified that I’d either get hit from oncoming traffic or get stuck in the snow and get hit from behind and/or from oncoming traffic.”
Fraleigh-Bulckaert said she saw some people stranded in their vehicles.
“I saw one car that was almost buried in snow on the road and I could barely see it’s flashing lights,” she said. “I hope the person got out and is safe.”
Thamesville resident Terry Acs said she should have turned around in the morning before she headed to work in Wallaceburg.
“It was icy and a little snowy but nothing like it was on the way home,” she said.
Acs said her work, the Southwest Regional Credit Union in Wallaceburg, closed up early due to the worsening weather conditions, so she traveled up Highway 78 to head towards Dresden, and Thamesville.
“I was very nervous about the blowing snow,” she said. “It’s so open that the snow was blinding at times but I cruised at 40-45 km all the way to Dresden, hanging on tight when I hit the drifts.”
After a 10-minute break at Tim Horton’s in Dresden, she continued on to Thamesville where it was mostly a straight path.
“There was a lot of blowing snow and at points you could see just how thick the ice was on the road from the few bare spots,” she said. “Ice was about 1 inch thick, some drifting and blowing snow.”
Acs said today’s commute was nothing like two weeks ago when she was heading to Wyoming, and she ran into the “horrible flash blizzard.
“I couldn’t even see the hood of my car at times,” she said. “That was the most frightened I have ever been in my 36 years of driving, which was the day I was literally preparing myself that I was going to die in an accident that morning. That is the day I learned that my life is worth more than any amount of money in the world. Work is not worth dying for, my family is worth living for.”
Fraleigh-Bulckaert had a similar realization today.
“I went to work because I thought I couldn’t afford to take the day off work,” she said. “I’ll never think or do that again. I value my family way too much to risk putting them in a position of dealing with a hurt, or worse a dead mother/partner.”
Local police are encouraging people to stay of local roads until public crews are able to clear the roads.
