Northeastern Ontario emerging from paralyzing winter storm that closed highways across the region

Communities in northeastern Ontario are starting to shovel out from a paralyzing winter storm that at one point shut down most highways in the region, stranding drivers and isolating communities and businesses.

Some parts of the region were forecast to receive 60 cm of snow while others experienced freezing rain then snow, all enduring gusting winds, which continued on Tuesday.

Current road closures can be found at 511 Ontario, the ministry of transportations highway information site.

While some roads have re-opened, some dairy farmers had to watch their production go down the drain Monday.

About 30 farmers had to dump their milk when trucks couldn’t get through to pick it up, said the owner of Northern Ontario Milk Transportation, Andre Loranger.

Loranger said his company serves farmers in the Temiskaming and Verner areas, off highways 11 and 17.

Because pick-ups are every second day, Loranger said he wasn’t sure he would even be able to make the rounds for other farmers on Tuesday, with many of them located on side roads that may still be impassable.

“I feel bad for the producers, everyone is losing income on that, but it is what it is,” he said.

Loranger said it’s not worth risking the lives of his truck drivers to send them out in such weather.

The big issue is the highway, he said.

“We still have the same highway system that we did back in the 90s, but we have pretty much almost doubled the population that we had back then,” he said.

The NDP MPP for Timiskaming-Cochrane, John Vanthof, who has a farming background, said one of his constituents told him this was the first time he had dumped his milk since he started farming in 1977. 

“Having been a milk producer for many years, throwing good food that we have worked hard to produce, throwing it down the drain is an indescribable feeling,” he said. “It's not a good feeling.”

Problems with maintaining critical transportation routes is not new for the region, said Vanthof, but the issue is growing more dire, and it’s one he and his NDP colleagues have raised in the legislature.