Snowmageddon revealed nature's raw power — and Canadians' resilience

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“Snowmaggedon.” Derivations of that phrase get thrown around a lot, but ten years ago, in southwestern Ontario, Lambton County found itself pounded by a snow squall that refused to pass.

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Initial weather warnings started pinging on Sunday night, but by Monday, December 13, 2010, residents and travelers along a 30-kilometre stretch of Highway 402 and surrounding areas would find themselves facing down what for some would surely remain a once-in-a-lifetime storm.

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News reports at the time spent a lot of time highlighting the arrival of the military; a C-130 Hercules aircraft hung high overhead while Griffon helicopters began extricating stranded occupants from cars. A recent panel discussion between local officials of the time, held to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the event, however, revealed what you might expect when a rural area gets hit with extraordinary circumstances: the strength and commitment from those already on the ground.

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The OPP, the Community Emergency Management Coordinators, county wardens, firefighters, paramedics and field officers, all were taxed to bring together their skills and their training. But also, remarkably, the residents. Farmers opening their doors to strangers, using their tractors to dig through snow to help reach stranded motorists with sandwiches and drinks, local snowmobile clubs finding themselves and their sleds the only way to access people. Local people showing up with blankets and cots and food to warming stations, hastily set up in one community after another. 

Highway 402 is a major corridor over the U.S. border. Daily, 4,000 to 5,000 semi-trucks thunder past. The stretch of highway in Lambton County is noted for having unpredictable weather, and if a squall sets in, drivers take precautions. Officials were keeping an eye on conditions by Monday morning, while the province waffled on closing the highway as a precaution: a highway closure represents $10 million an hour in economic losses, after all. “By late afternoon on Monday, we had jack-knifed tractor-trailers. We knew we were going to be really bad,” said former Lambton OPP Fred Wessels.

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Jennifer Turk was the Community Emergency Management Coordinator for Plympton-Wyoming at the time. “The weather watch called for direct north winds. We knew we were going to get dumped on,” she says. Most squalls move; this one remained in basically one place, dumping 40 cm of snow on the highway, accompanied by wind gusts up to 70 km/h. 

According to these officials, 200 tractor-trailers and about 325 cars – 600 people –  would be stranded on that 30-kilometre stretch of highway and on sideroads and service roads as drivers attempted to leave the highway. Police cars were stuck; snowplows were getting stuck; eventually, it was mainly snowmobiles, both police and volunteer groups, who could reach those cocooned in their cars. Many recently shared their stories with the Lambton County Archives .

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Jamie and Janessa, a young couple whose acreage backed onto the highway, were sitting down to dinner when they saw the traffic begin to back up. “ As we sat in our warm home eating our dinner, we determined that we needed to try to do something for all those people stuck in their vehicles on the road. We decided to make a whole bunch of hot chocolate and we put it in a large cooler and strapped it to the back of our ATV. We bundled up and headed out, going to each vehicle and offering hot chocolate to them,” said Janessa. 

When it became clear they were in for a long night, the couple offered up their home to the stranded. Many of the truckers were equipped to ride out the storm in their cabs, but many of the drivers were running out of gas. “You couldn’t see our place from the road as the whiteouts were so intense, but we instructed them to look for the light that we would leave on for them,” Janessa recalls.

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Two men knocked on the door that night; five more came in the next morning. “Our friends came out to our place with pillows and sleeping bags strapped to the back of their ATVs and snowmobiles,” she explained, noting that for two days, she was cooking whatever she had on hand, and people were sleeping wherever they could bed down in the small home.

For those in their cars, it was a different view of the same storm. A woman was on her way to an 8:00 am exam at Lambton College. “I left early to make it in time from London. Traffic was slow… I made the decision to […] get off the highway. The ramp was blocked by a jack-knifed tractor-trailer, so I continued on 402 for about a kilometre before traffic came to a standstill,” she explains.

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“There was a snowplow in the ditch. I had a classmate with me […] and two other travelers joined us from other vehicles that were running out of gas. I got out a few times to make sure the tailpipe was clear […] called my husband, parents… my boss at work to give them the heads-up I wasn’t going to make it that night. I was also six months pregnant with my second child.”

They spent the night watching DVDs in her van, chatting on their phones and waiting for help. She’d called the OPP to report she needed water and food, but had a full tank of gas. As the downed snowplow symbolized however, it was impossible to get to them.

“The next morning, about ten people came around on snowmobiles with water. By this point, my gas tank was getting low so I hopped on the back of one of the snowmobiles and went to the service station… I purchased some food, used the restroom, filled up two jerry cans with gas and took a snowmobile ride back to my vehicle, where I filled it up, ate, and stayed until the OPP showed up at 1:00 pm.” 

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At another house, a woman and her husband rescued 30 people, “including truckers from Chicago and a Russian captain trying to get to his ship in Sarnia.” “We fed people everything we had in the house… and one insurance guy had been out delivering Christmas boxes of rum, so we opened one up,” she says. “I had done Christmas baking that day… we fit ten cars in the driveway… and we left cars on the road.”

“It was so blustery… we walked to the corner with a camping lantern through massive snowdrifts looking for stranded people,” she recalls. “We were on generator power but still managed to keep everyone warm with the gas fireplace, blankets. People just slept everywhere. The truckers slept in their truck and came in the morning for French toast and coffee. We made 88 cups of coffee. Everyone did their part, including trying to siphon gas for the generator, but with new vehicles, there’s no siphoning.”

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A neighbour was able to get some out of a mini-bike, and in the morning, my husband walked down to Kelly’s Sporting Goods and Wes gave us some gas. Tony, a neighbour, [used] his backhoe [to get a] jack-knifed tractor-trailer out of the ditch. Don from Advantage Farm Equipment used his tractor to get the transports moving, as they were stuck on the road with ice underneath. It truly [was] an event we’ll never forget.”

Janessa sums it up. ”One of the first men to arrive at our place that snowy night has even come to visit us a few times in years since. It was amazing to see how our military and community gathered around all these stranded people in our township… We will never forget those few days where strangers became like friends.”

Reading about this event should tell you better than any list what you need to have in your car for winter travel. Proper clothing, a full tank of fuel, food, water, a charged phone, emergency kit. Picture yourself or your loved one in this situation, and make a plan. The area now has swing gates to close the highway, evergreens have been planted to create a wind block and there is electronic signage. Thank you to the people of this region of southwestern Ontario who so kindly opened their homes and their hearts.