The 13-hour journey home on Highway 93

A Calgary woman is finally home safe after her normal three-hour trip back to Calgary became an overnight disaster in a 13-hour and two day trek home.

Jody Forbes and her friend were driving home from her cabin in Invermere, B.C on Sunday when winter conditions on Highway 93 and the backlog to the tragic weather slamming southern B.C caused traffic to come to a complete halt.

“We’ve had a place out there for 10 years and are back and forth all the time. I’ve never seen anything even close to as bad as this was,” Forbes said.

Spending six hours with no cell service or communication in a traffic jam, Forbes and her friend decided to turn around and return to the cabin around 7 p.m. Sunday night.

“We didn’t move for hours but we were worried about turning back cause we weren’t sure we’d be able to get back. But we did. It was slow back to Radium but moving,” she says.

The long road home  

On Monday, the duo decided to take the Cranbrook/Fernie route on Highway 3, which takes longer but was necessary. In total it took them 13 hours to get home over two days in what would normally take three hours.

The biggest challenge though, Forbes says, was the lack of direction those stuck in the traffic jam had. Turns out a semi-truck and trailer had jackknifed and closed down one lane of Highway 93 south.

“The problem was there was zero communication and there’s no cell coverage on the highway. The only info we got was from a trucker in front of us and he just said the trucks were having issues getting up and down the hills,” she says.

“We had no idea the highway was even closed. My family was losing it when they didn’t hear from us for seven hours.”

Some cars had run out of gas while others ran out of electric energy.

Meanwhile, flooding continues to impact southern B.C and there is currently no direct route to Vancouver due to the torrential downpour and mudslides damaging the highways.

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