'Like I hit a brick wall': Part of Cabot Trail washed out on man as he drove over it
CBC
A Cape Breton man whose vehicle fell around six metres into a hole when part of the Cabot Trail washed out from underneath him Tuesday says he thought he was going to die.
Davey Fraser works for Parks Canada as a heavy equipment operator and truck driver. On Tuesday, he was just past the entrance to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Broad Cove where he was doing traffic control to prevent people from travelling on the road and was also checking for flooding.
Parts of the Cabot Trail, a 298-kilometre highway loop in northern Cape Breton, are now washed out and closed after heavy rain and winds blasted the province Tuesday.
With visibility poor from the pounding rain, Fraser drove slowly and said he saw some mud, which he believed to be runoff from the shoulder of the road.
"It was almost like I hit a brick wall, but I was down in the hole when I hit," said Fraser. "I didn't even feel the truck drop — I was just going and, 'Bang!'"
Fraser hopped out of the driver's side of the vehicle and estimates the drop was around two metres to the gushing water, mud and asphalt below.
"I said, 'I have to get out of here because this isn't going to stay,'" said Fraser, who managed to climb up to the road on broken asphalt.
From there, he phoned his supervisor. In the few minutes it took for the supervisor to arrive, the vehicle washed farther away.
He and his boss were met nearby by paramedics and taken to a paramedic station. Fraser said the paramedics thought he should get X-rayed, but there was no way to get him to hospitals in Baddeck or Sydney because of flooding and road washouts.
Fraser said his chest and ribs are sore and he figures he has a broken nose.
When he got home to Ingonish, he learned his rough day hadn't ended. Fraser's basement was flooding, his roof was leaking and his well had washed away.
The weather station nearest to Ingonish is in Ingonish Beach, which saw 263 millimetres of rain, said CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon.
Fraser said he plans to return to work Monday or Tuesday and chalks what happened up to being one of the duties of the job.
"It will stick in my mind for awhile," he said.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Nancy Addison is still waiting for a house to come home to, one year after a wildfire raged through Jasper, Alta.
There's an app for that — even to help monitor people on bail in Ontario.
A fire at a waste facility in Wellington, P.E.I., on Saturday could have been much worse than it turned out to be.
It's been well documented by now that Canadians are drinking less than they used to, but no other province has seen a greater reduction than Alberta.
Canada's premiers are kicking off a three-day summit in Ontario's cottage country at a time of heightened anxiety over tariffs and trade with Canada's closest trading partner, the United States.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is dismissing the question of whether U.S. free trade with Canada is dead, calling the notion "silly" and saying a substantial amount of Canadian goods enter the U.S. tariff-free under the current North American free trade deal.
Howard Mah and Lori Arnason had never seen a wild grizzly until Saturday.
Police in New York state say they have found a nine-year-old Canadian girl who was reported missing in northeastern New York dead.
A 14-year-old has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a woman in a North York parking lot last Thursday, Toronto police say.
It's been a big week for Tyrelle Chadwick.
Joanne Williams estimates she's taught 2,000 people how to make bentwood boxes.
Paula Callejas, a Montreal native, was trying to expand her swimsuit business in Florida after taking time off to take care of her ailing father in Canada before his death.
Across Alberta, more people are buying new vehicles even as prices have been shooting up.