"We were a lot better off than they were around Weyburn."
Const. Cris Classen of the Estevan detachment of the RCMP was responding to a request to comment on Estevan area calls for assistance resulting from the extremely icy highway conditions that prevailed during the past weekend.
The local detachment responded to just three motor vehicle incidents involving icy roads on the past weekend, two of them being rollovers and the other being a vehicle entering a ditch. None of them resulted in injuries to drivers or passengers. This was minor compared with the more chaotic situations that drivers found themselves in further north, west and east.
Classen said the one call he received involved an early morning dispatch to a point west of Torquay on Highway 18 that involved a Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure sanding truck which had slipped into the ditch.
"It was pretty much a skating rink out there early Saturday morning," said Classen.
The other two incidents occurred Friday night.
"Highway 39 from Midale to Weyburn was pretty bad most of the weekend, so we were just pretty lucky right around here. It could have been much worse," He said, adding that highway traffic volumes were reduced a lot due to the conditions and the detachment received a number of calls from potential motorists wanting to know more about local roads and highway conditions.
"The Highways people got the salt and sand units out right away and that definitely helped almost immediately," Classen said.
And while some members were addressing tough highway conditions, others were carrying on investigations, one of which involved the theft of nearly 400 litres of diesel fuel between late night Nov. 27 and early morning Nov. 29.
The fuel was removed from the fuel tank of a parked D8 Caterpillar bulldozer that was located about six kilometres north of Lampman.
Another incident that is being investigated by the local RCMP involved a royal blue pickup truck that was seen parked on the shoulder of Highway 18 about four miles west of Estevan on the afternoon of Nov. 30.
The truck was parked facing the wrong direction with what appeared to be a rifle pointed out of the driver's window. The intentions of the driver were unknown to observers who could not state emphatically that the object seen was actually a firearm, but they had reported what they had seen in the interest of public safety.
Anyone with information regarding either of these incidents is asked to contact the local RCMP detachment at 637-4400 or call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
