Fuel truck crashes through ice road
Deline incident first of two accidents involving semis in one week
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Monday, March 14, 2016
DELINE/FORT FRANKLIN
A fuel truck fell through the ice road near Deline while another jackknifed off the road between Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson last week.
A fuel truck crashed through the ice road about three km outside Deline on March 5. A detour was opened on March 8. - photo courtesy of Department of Environment and Natural Resources |
The first incident took place on March 5 when a fuel truck crashed through the ice about three km outside of Deline, said Kevin McLeod, director of the territory's highways.
McLeod said the incident happened while the truck was travelling to Deline to deliver fuel.
No one was injured. He said it's still not known what caused it to fall through the ice.
"I'm going to do the forensic review after the whole issue is over," he said.
"Ice is a dynamic medium in which to engineer, so I'm not jumping to any conclusions at the moment."
Crews began removing fuel from the truck on March 7.
The process involved flooding the ice in and around the truck to make it secure for personnel to begin work.
"The idea is to bring an empty tanker to within about 70 metres or 50 metres of the truck and then, through a series of hoses and pumps, to pump out the tank into another tank and also the fuel that's in the truck's fuel tank itself," McLeod said.
Fuel extraction was completed toward the end of the week and crews were scheduled to begin removing the truck on March 10, said Ioana Spiridonica, manager of public affairs and communications with the Department of Transportation.
McLeod said the truck would be extracted and then towed to shore.
"There will be a process where we lift the truck and take the weight off the ice, break the ice around the truck and then lift and haul it out at the same time," McLeod said. "We'll drag it onto ice that's got the capacity to take its weight and then we will tow it onto shore."
A detour had been constructed and the road was open to light vehicles as of press time on March 11, but Spiridonica said that could change. The Department of Transportation's Twitter feed would provide current updates, she added.
"The Deline crossing is open to light traffic for the time being, but when crews resume their operations to remove the tanker, because they started yesterday, they will have to close the crossing with little or no notice," she said.
There was no timeline in place for when the tanker was expected to be removed.
"Safety is paramount in such an operation, no one is rushing," she said. "They are wearing all sorts of floating suits and safety devices on them but you cannot afford to put those lives at risk."
McLeod said there are still about 70 fuel trucks that need to get into Deline to provide the community with its yearly supply of fuel.
"They need about three million litres of petroleum products throughout the year and we are in that process of resupplying them," he said.
"We received about 13 trucks. There are a total of 85 trucks that make up that whole resupply, so there are about 70 trucks or so that need to get into Deline."
On March 9, another fuel truck jackknifed and flipped on the ice road between Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson, Spiridonica said.
It has since been recovered. The truck had been heading to Inuvik and then it was possibly continuing onto Tuktoyaktuk, according to Spiridonica.
