THE www.keremeosreview.com PM Agreement #40012521
Review Vol.16 Number 51
Thursday, December 18, 2014
$1.15 including GST
Serving the communities of Keremeos, Cawston, Okanagan Falls and Kaleden
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage
Elderly woman injured in icy mailbox fall Tara Bowie Review Staff
Tara Bowie
“Someone is going to get really hurt,” said Patty Thornton, 82, after a fall in front of her mailbox.
Her face is black and blue. Her ribs are bruised. Patty Thornton, 82, went to pick up her mail from her community box on 4th Street and lost her footing on an accumulation of ice and snow. “I went flat down and banged my head against the mailbox,” she said, when she stopped into the Keremeos Review office recently. The lively woman came to the Review looking for an answer as to where the responsibility lies in cleaning the area around the outside mailboxes after seeing an editorial in the paper just days before her unfortunate spill reminding residents to be good neighbours and take care of their sidewalks and driveways. She claims she went to the vil-
lage office after her fall on Dec. 4 and was told it is not a municipal responsibility. “I just want to know who’s responsibility it is,” she said. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble but there are a lot of older people that need to get their mail from there and they can’t when there’s ice and snow. Someone is going to get really hurt.” Laurie Taylor, the village’s CAO wrote this to the Review in an email: “Canada Post is responsible for keeping the access to their mailboxes clear of snow and ice,” she wrote. After several calls and emails to the media department of Canada Post the Review received two short replies confirming Canada Post is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the property. “The customer discussed the
incident with us on the weekend (she and her husband came to the post office). It appears the incident happened on Thursday, Dec 4. There were no previous issues with this site, but upon hearing of the incident, we have reviewed the site to ensure it was safe for our customers,” Anick Losier, a spokesperson for Canada Post wrote in the email. Because of warm temperatures recently most roadways have been cleared of snow and ice for several days. “I assure you that we try and do our very best (despite the weather) and whenever our customers alert us of a site that might not meet standards, we have an immediate process to rectify the situation. We encourage anyone to let us know if anything is not as it should be with our sites,” the email concluded.
No quick fix coming for rockslide area Tara Bowie Review Staff
It won’t be until at least summer of 2015 before a more permanent solution can be executed to hopefully prevent future rockslides on Hwy 3, west of Keremeos. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transportation told the Review in an email that work this summer is in the planning stages and “will include the excavation of the upper slope to create a wider ditch, a large rock catchment area and to reestablish the highway to four lanes.” In the most recent slide, rocks began to fall Tuesday Dec. 9 at around 3 p.m. The rockslide closed the highway for the night as rocks continued to fall
until 9 p.m. No injuries or damages to vehicles were reported. As the slide happened just about an hour before school closed approximately 25 students who should have been headed home to Hedley were left stranded at Similkameen Elementary Secondary School. Students from Cawston had already transferred to SESS by the time word had gotten out about the slide. The roadway was littered with parked cars before RCMP officially closed the road around 4 p.m. Several other slides have occurred at the same spot during the last year. In recent weeks the ministry established a multiple metre high concrete catchment wall at the site located continued page six
Extreme thaw-freeze cycles caused the rockslide that shut down Highway 3 West of Keremeos last week.
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