Wet soil has been pinpointed as the cause of three washouts and a sinkhole that reduced traffic to single lane at spots east and west of Prince George along Highway 16 this week.
Washouts along Highway 16 are not unusual, but that many at one time comes along only once every so often.
"They're not high risk situations," said Ministry of Transportation regional manager Mike Lorimer. "We've got a fairly wet spring again and between the snowpack and the fact we had such a mild winter when we had a lot of freezing and thawing, we've got ground that's quite wet."
Installation of a new culvert meant the highway has since been reopened to two lanes 27 kilometres west of Burns Lake but a sinkhole remained a problem two kilometres east of Topley as did washouts at 55 and 78 kilometres east of Prince George.
"We've got local crews assigned to each of them," Lorimer said this week. "A couple of the sites are a little more straightforward but the site at Topley, it's in quite a deep fill. It's not overly complicated but it's a bigger job."
In addition to the DriveBC website, motorists can also get updates via the new overhead signs near Jensen and Jutland Road west of Prince George, and at Foreman Road east of the city, Lorimer noted.
There is also one on Highway 97 at Christopher Road to the north.
