Rock Slide - Sea to Sky Highway

Rock Slide - Sea to Sky Highway taken from seaplane, originally uploaded by mozillamarcia.

On Tuesday sometime after 10pm a huge rock slide narrowly missed a shuttle bus and shut down the Sea to Sky highway between Whistler and Vancouver. The slide happened between Lions Bay and Furry Creek burying both lanes of Highway 99 and the train tracks under up to 10 metres of rock. Initial reports expected the highway to be closed for up to 5 days but it sounds like crews may take even longer to clear the debris even though blasting has already begun in an effort to restore transportation between Vancouver and Whistler. With the Sea to Sky highway closed the detour trip between Whistler and Vancouver is expected to take 7-10 hours by car.

Of course the big question is what kind of contingency plans will be in place for the 2010 Olympics? Although another rock slide of this magnitude is unlikely within such a short time-frame - the highway obviously can't be shut down for 5 days during the Olympics. Whatever backup measures are established and presented through the media - I suspect the real plan will be for all VANOC members to keep their fingers crossed at all times during the 2010 Olympics. Maybe we could finally use those fast ferries that were mis-engineered a few years back. Now where did we put those things?