No food, no water: Snow-stranded driver’s lessons from hellish commute

You wouldn’t think you’d need an emergency stash of food, water, and spare clothes for a half-hour commute home — but many Metro Vancouver drivers suffered without them when a snowstorm paralyzed the region’s highway system Tuesday.

Many drivers got stuck behind collisions and closed bridges for up to 12 hours as the storm dumped 20 centimetres of powder in some areas. Mary Lavery was one of them. It took her more than eight hours to drive from her volunteering shift at Canuck Place Children’s Hospice to her home in Langley.

“I could have flown to England in that time,” she said. “But at least on an airplane you can get up and walk around and use the bathroom and have something to eat.”

She hit traffic on Oak Street in Vancouver, and at one point joked to her husband on the phone she’d spend the night at River Rock Casino Resort. Looking back, she says she should’ve done it.

Traffic came to a standstill on Highway 99 in Richmond when she got stuck behind a jack-knifed semi.

“Nothing was getting through the [Massey Tunnel] and there were multiple emergency vehicles on scene … everything was blocked,” she said.

She was sitting in the car, her clothes wet from the rain, on hour four of her journey. Her phone died and she had no way to contact her family.

“Even though you’re in a crowd of 1,000 of your closest friends sitting in their own vehicles … I felt totally isolated,” she said. “The scary part of it was not knowing what’s coming.”

At one point she wanted to get out of the car to stretch, but the ice on the road was frozen solid. She didn’t want to risk slipping and falling.

She saw many abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, and there were people crossing the highway.

“In the middle of Highway 99, where are you going?” she said. “I guess I could have walked the 26 kilometres in less than eight hours. So maybe that’s what they did.”

Tuesday night was her worst traffic experience anywhere in the world. She arrived home after midnight feeling totally drained.

She said the experience has convinced her to pack the car with emergency supplies in case it ever happens again.

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“Just the importance of having a couple of granola bars and water. Just stick it under the seat — you never know,” she said.

She added her heart goes out to families with kids in the car. “I can’t even imagine how they would have coped,” she said.

BC officials have previously urged British Columbians travelling on highways to pack their cars with an emergency kit and extra warm clothes — after the atmospheric river floods in 2021.

But apparently, an emergency kit isn’t just necessary for cross-province trips — given how bad Metro Vancouver roads can get when it snows.

The next round of snowfall is expected on Friday, and the province is urging drivers to stay off highways except for essential travel.

The Weather Network is calling for one to three centimetres of snow on Friday.