Crews partially reopen highway north of Toronto after major snowstorm hits cottage country

Crews have partially reopened Highway 11 north of Toronto this afternoon after parts of Ontario’s cottage country were hit with upwards of 140 centimetres of snowfall over the weekend.

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) confirmed that the northbound lanes of the highway, between Orillia and Huntsville, have now opened and the southbound lanes are expected to reopen at 4 p.m.

“Road crews and cleanup crews, (the Ministry of Transportation), are working diligently. The vehicles, hundreds of vehicles, that were stranded there because of impassable roads have been removed,” OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt told CP24 on Monday morning.

“There is still significant amounts of ice accumulation. We are waiting for the salt to really start engaging in that ice to melt it off and get that down to an asphalt service.”  

A state of emergency was declared for Gravenhurst, a town located in the Muskoka area, this weekend following a winter storm that dumped more than 100 centimetres of snowfall on the region.

Emergency crews were forced to pull people from their cars after they were stranded on area roadways.

“It is a pretty scary situation. You may be in blowing snow, limited visibility. You may be on a live lane and there is traffic coming behind you,” Schmidt said.

He noted that motorists in that situation should “make themselves as visible as possible.”

“(Keep) your full headlighting system on, your four-way flashing lights on,” he noted.

The number of customers without power surpassed 60,000 at the peak of the storm, Hydro One confirmed.

Schmidt said snow removal equipment from Toronto Pearson International Airport is being used to help clear Highway 11.

“We don’t want to have an intermittent type of reopening or just small sections because that would just overwhelm some of the side roads,” he said, adding that all available resources are being used to get the highway back up and running.

Gravenhurst Mayor Heidi Lorenz urged residents to stay off the roads if possible.

“We want residents to stay home. We know people are concerned about their neighbours and we want them to check on their neighbours, however if you can, stay home,” she said Monday.

“The roads that we are able to access, there is abandoned cars on them, there are fallen trees on them, there’s branches. We have hydro out in some places… If you have hydro and you are safe and warm, please do your very best to keep your travel to a minimum.”  

With files from The Canadian Press