No students were on board a Pembina Hills Public Schools bus that slid off the road and ended up in a ditch Nov. 16.
Pembina Hills assistant Supt. of employee services and facilities and transportation David Garbutt said the driver of Bus No. 102, which services Pembina North Community School, was uninjured when the vehicle rolled into the culvert on Township Road 632A, west of Jarvie.
“It wasn’t really a rollover,” said Garbutt.
“The front of the bus did go into ditch and when it caught there the bus continued to slide around … and because the ditch was deep it fell over on its side.
“It looked pretty bad, but the way the driver described what happened it was one of those slow-motion, slide-into-the-ditch-and-tip-over kind of things.”
Garbutt said the crash was due to a number of factors including icy conditions and washboarding of the road.
“There’s a lot of ruts on that road and it had frozen over, so thankfully there was no children on the bus,” he said.
“I don’t want to lay blame anywhere. I think it was just a combination of the weather and everything. The driver described the roads as washboards.
“Obviously, I’d say the roads need to be looked at and regraded.”
Upon being made aware of the issue, it’s something Westlock County looked into.
While CAO Peter Kelly said that he was only aware of the ice and not the rutting, he also noted that the municipality had addressed the issue.
“We did bring out the fork attachment to the grader and did work those roads and other roads as well,” Kelly said.
“Once we were advised we certainly moved quickly and we continue to try to deal with the roads as they present themselves to us each and every day.”
But the incident came as no big surprise to area resident Alex Gibson — his home is about a kilometre east of the site.
Gibson says when the county grader pulled the shoulders earlier in the fall, he was concerned with all the dirt left on the road.
“I said, ‘Man oh man, you’ve got to put some gravel on there. That’s going to be a real mess.’ Well, they said, ‘No, we’re done gravelling for the year,’” he said.
“When it rained towards the end of October and trucks were going down and leaving big ruts, I phoned them (the county) again, talking to a staff member, who passed the word on.”
Gibson says the transportation department staffer confirmed he got the message, but nothing was done and the road got worse and worse.
“Everybody just blames somebody else, by the sound of it,” Gibson said.
Township Road 632A crosses the Pembina River at Jarvie, and is the main road west of the community.
It sees a lot of traffic, including grain and gravel trucks, as well as other traffic.
The same day as the accident, the grader was on the road and coarse crush gravel had been applied. But the ground is frozen now, and Gibson says it most certainly won’t work into the road like it might have if the job had been done earlier.
Garbutt went to lengths to assure parents and guardians of students who use division bus services that they are safe and such incidents are rare.
He puts a lot of that safety down to the level of driving skill maintained by their bus drivers.
“We have really good drivers. I would describe them as professional drivers and we have all the confidence in the world in them or we wouldn’t let them be driving our kids.”
Damage to the bus was described as cosmetic, limited to scratches on the side of the vehicle.
As with any incident involving a school bus accident, Garbutt said the division is looking into the circumstances.
“We do our due diligence following an incident like this,” Garbutt said. “I look into driver history and we have all the confidence in this driver.”
Ultimately it will be up the division’s insurance company to make the final call on costs.
Westlock RCMP said they looked into the incident and interviewed the bus driver and that no further action was required.
A second school bus was brought into replace the damaged one and the driver involved in the rollover was back on the road for her afternoon shift.
“She actually drove for us that evening,” Garbutt said.
• With files from Les Dunford.
