Drivers told to stay off highways as blizzard leads to crashes across southern Manitoba, massive Fermor pileup

An emergency alert urged drivers to stay off highways Friday, as a fierce winter storm reduced visibility to near zero in many areas and led to crashes, including pileups, in southern Manitoba.

At least 50 to 60 collisions had been reported on southern Manitoba highways by Friday afternoon, according to RCMP, and dozens of highways were closed, including the Trans-Canada from Winnipeg to Brandon, which was closed for most of the day Friday but reopened by about 5:30 p.m.

The Southern Health regional health authority declared a code orange at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach and Ste. Anne Hospital Friday morning, after a multi-vehicle crash near Ste. Anne, about 45 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg, a Shared Health spokesperson said.

A code orange is called when a hospital needs to prepare for a potential sudden influx of patients.

Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg also issued a code orange alert, warning that a code orange may be called, shortly before 11 a.m. in response to several multi-vehicle collisions outside the city, the spokesperson said.

The province of Manitoba issued a news release, and also sent an alert via phones, just after noon, advising drivers to avoid travel on any southern Manitoba roadways amid worsening conditions. It was the first time a dangerous road conditions alert had been sent by Manitoba's Emergency Management Organization, a provincial spokesperson said.

"Priority on the roadways needs to be given to emergency vehicles," the province said in its news release, also warning that it is illegal to travel on closed roads.

"The highways are treacherous, there's no other word to describe it," RCMP Sgt. Paul Manaigre said. "I don't think there's probably an officer in southern Manitoba that isn't dealing with a crash right now or writing it up. It's crazy."

It seemed most crashes hadn't resulted in injuries, but police will have more information on the severity of the collisions later in the day, he said.

"[It's] clearly a day to stay home and just wait it out."

The province said for the safety of plow drivers and other motorists, it was pausing snow-clearing operations on roadways where visibility was reduced.

The roads will be salted or sanded once winds die down, said Tara Liske, Manitoba's executive director of highway regional operations, but "it's ultimately the RCMP that will have to reopen the highways."

The City of Winnipeg, meanwhile, said it would begin plowing streets and sidewalks at 7 p.m. Friday, based on its street-clearing priority system.

The highway closures, which stretched throughout southern Manitoba, included the entire Perimeter Highway in Winnipeg, which was shut down by 10:30 a.m. and reopened just before the start of the afternoon rush hour Friday.