'Our fingers are crossed': Red Lake residents hope for quick repairs to washed-out highway

A weekend washout has cut the municipality of Red Lake off from the rest of northwestern Ontario.

The washout at the Caribou Creek Bridge on Highway 105 occurred on Saturday, with high water flows completely washing away the bridge.

"With the quick thaw that we've been having throughout the district, the groundremain frozen still," Red Lake Mayor Fred Mota told CBC News on Monday. "The water cannot seep into the ground, and therefore there's lots of runoff."

Mota said Ministry of Transportation crews were on-site to make repairs Monday, but high waters remained a problem.

"They do have large culverts that they floated up to the Red Lake area from Dryden, and they're going to hopefully be able to install it and have it secured by later [Monday] afternoon," he said. "But the difficulty that they're facing is still the high waters and the speed of the flow of the water."

In an update issued later Monday, the Municipality of Red Lake said the ministry hoped to have the highway re-opened Monday evening.

Highway 105 is the only highway running to and from Red Lake, Mota said, and while there are some backroads that also provide access, they were difficult to traverse due to mud and washouts.

"Our fingers are crossed," Mota said. "All of our residents have been very resilient over the years with forest fires, our pandemic and many other things that have happened in our communities. And we'll get through this as well."

Mota said the municipality hasplenty of supplies, butsome residents were cut off from the community by the washout on Highway 105.

"Many people just left the community for the afternoon to do some shopping out of town or traveling for medical purposes," he said. "There's a lot of anxiety for people, but we will get through this."

The washout was one of many road issues reported by northwestern Ontario in recent days.

In the region, Ontario 511 listed several other highway and road closures on Monday:

• Highway 658 at Reddit, north of the Basket Lake Bridge, was fully closed due to water over the road;
• Gordon Lake Road, west of McIntosh Road, closed due to increased flow of water through the Forest Lake dam;
• Highway 665 at Eyolfson Road, north of Dryden, closed because of washouts;
• Highway 605 between Highway 17 and Rugby Lake Road closed due to "multiple" locations withwater over the road;
• Highway 601 at McArthur Road closed due to washout damage;
• Gus Wouri Road 100 meters north of Hansen Road closed due to a culvert failure;
• Aiken Road at Dawson Goldie closed with water over the road.

There were also a number of partial closures listed, includingHighway 105 at Buller Creek, where the northbound lane was closed Monday due to water over the road.

Meanwhile, in Thunder Bay, a section of Strathcona Avenuebetween Hodder Avenue and Spruce River Road was closedafter a culvert collapsed. No timeline for repairs was provided.

Elsewhere in the city, workcontinued on a section of River Street, between Algoma Street North and College Street, where a sinkhole formed last week.