Ice studies upon studies (April 29 column)

DIARY

Let’s study the studies of the ice studies

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            The ice had hardly started to move when the road on the Abner Paul Flat (as I call it after my late friend) above Perth was flooded and closed, as it seems to have been every year since the Bats left the Mosul Valley Caves of Iraq in the year 1229 a.d.

            I have never been able to understand why the government cannot raise that four or five hundred foot stretch of Highway so that it does not flood every year, but I can only guess that it is because all the available money has been spent on studies, ‘monitoring’, and installing all kinds of electronic equipment to predict when that stretch of road is going to flood each year. I am baffled as to why that road hasn’t been raised to avoid inconveniencing the thousands of people who want and need to use it.

            Geez, all they have to do is ask me or anyone from Tobique First Nation, Tilley, Rowena, or Timbuktu and we would all say: “First thing!” and then demand our consulting fee.

            Another example of a section of road that badly needs raising is the Muniac Road where it meets Highway 105. When a short stretch of it was covered with water in March  2012, medical emergencies going from Perth to Waterville hospital had a long way to go. Even if they were driving one a them new Porch cars, that’s quite a drive.

            As to raising the level of Muniac Road, I suggested that to two cabinet ministers and two MLAs and they all looked at me blankly and then nodded wisely. Lights out, nobody home. The cabinet ministers (I could tell) were barely aware that Victoria County existed and the bureaucrats with them were fairly certain it did not.

            However, we who live in southern Victoria County would be glad to tell them where these roads are and even to take them there. The only way these people are going to understand is if they’re taken right to the scene. For example, if we had a vanload of cabinet ministers and bureaucrats and were sitting in the parking lot at Hotel Dieu of St. Joseph hospital in Perth-Andover and we said to them: “Okay, let’s pretend this is an emergency; we have to take patients by ambulance to Waterville hospital.

            “We can’t go south on highway 105 because the water is across the road just below Perth and we can’t cross the bridge because it’s been closed. Abner Paul Flat has been under water since 1981. Question: How do we get to Waterville hospital? Yes, Johnny, in the back? What’s your answer?”

            “We could go over Jawbone Mountain (as it’s called) and go south on Kintore Road, come out at Highway 105 in Muniac, then to Waterville.”

            “Johnny, that’s excellent! You are a rare bird in government. Have you actually travelled that road?” Johnny said he had travelled it. All around him were these puzzled faces. “Now,” the van driver (me) says, “let’s pretend we have a patient who needs to go to Waterville ASAP.”

            So we go the way Johnny has suggested. That is, until we get to the end of Muniac Road which is covered with a metre or two of water. The patient is still okay but his mind is now concentrated more than it was before. As the English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson once said: “Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged”. Same with dying in an ambulance. It’s not that bad yet, but getting there. Even the cabinet ministers and bureaucrats are starting to understand. A miracle, but miracles happen.

(Remember, this is all play-acting.)

            “Now what?” I asked them. Getting no answer, I turned around the van and headed north. Fifteen minutes later we reached Highway 109 at Forest Glen and could  see the Tobique going by. A right-hand turn and then to Arthurette. Then do I go left to Peoples Road or right to the Anderson Road? I choose the first. We go through South Tilley, Lerwick and Tilley, and eventually we get to Medford.As we go up we see that Brooks Bridge is closed, so it’s on to Grand Falls, quite a way upriver. There we get onto the Trans Canada Highway and make our way south to Waterville hospital. “That didn’t take long did it?” I say to the late patient. “An hour and a half?” His life support system had conked out at Portage.

            Listen, government. All that driving from Muniac to Arthurette, etc. could have been avoided if only a 300-foot stretch of Muniac Road had been raised ten feet. Perhaps the government could do a few studies on this, monitor the situation, and put in some more electronic gadgets. Or they could dump some gravel.

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