Mail Anybody!!!!
EDMONTON (CP) - Thousands of pieces of mail were still being retrieved, cleaned and re-sorted five days after a Canada Post semi-trailer tumbled off an Alberta bridge into a 100-metre-deep gorge.
"Some mail is still onsite - under the trailer," Canada Post spokeswoman Theresa Williams said Thursday.
Two Ontario men also remained in an Edmonton hospital where they were recuperating from the early-morning accident last Saturday.
A semi-trailer contracted to Canada Post was attempting to cross the Pembina River Bridge near Evansburg, about 60 kilometres west of Edmonton, when it hit a guard rail and tumbled down into the steep-walled valley below.
The river at the point where the semi tumbled lies nearly 100 metres below the bridge deck. The slope averages about 35 degrees, steep enough for an expert ski run.
By the time the semi unit had stopped rolling on a small plateau about halfway down the hill, the 15-metre trailer had been torn in half, its full load of mail fluttering down like oversized snowflakes. Mail, mostly intended for Vancouver, was piled more than two metres high in places.
"The trailer was basically emptied because it was ripped apart," said Ross Williams, the Canada Post supervisor who attended the site. "I was really wondering how we were ever going to clean this up."
Williams could see gathering mail from the steep slope would require climbing harnesses, ropes and helmets - equipment the post office doesn't normally stock.
As luck would have it, a maintenance crew had been working on the bridge and was staying in a nearby hotel.
"Their boss said, 'We'll shut down what we're doing and help you,"' said Williams. "We were pretty fortunate."
Workers rappelled down to the site and were lowered by crane to the cab, another 40 metres below.
Most of the mail was back in Edmonton by early in the week, Williams said.
Undamaged items will be re-sorted and re-sent, she said. Damaged envelopes or boxes will be patched and sent on accompanied by an explanatory letter.
Items with now-illegible addresses or addresses that have been torn from their packaging will go to the dead letter office until they're reclaimed.
RCMP found the two occupants of the truck outside the cab.
One man, Robert Sloane, 59, of Woodstock, Ont., was strapped to a back support board, hauled out of the gorge by firefighters with ropes and pulleys and airlifted to hospital in Edmonton.
The other man, Raymond Johnston, 43, of Chatham, Ont., was found conscious and sitting up some distance from Sloane. He was driven to the same hospital where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
"Some mail is still onsite - under the trailer," Canada Post spokeswoman Theresa Williams said Thursday.
Two Ontario men also remained in an Edmonton hospital where they were recuperating from the early-morning accident last Saturday.
A semi-trailer contracted to Canada Post was attempting to cross the Pembina River Bridge near Evansburg, about 60 kilometres west of Edmonton, when it hit a guard rail and tumbled down into the steep-walled valley below.
The river at the point where the semi tumbled lies nearly 100 metres below the bridge deck. The slope averages about 35 degrees, steep enough for an expert ski run.
By the time the semi unit had stopped rolling on a small plateau about halfway down the hill, the 15-metre trailer had been torn in half, its full load of mail fluttering down like oversized snowflakes. Mail, mostly intended for Vancouver, was piled more than two metres high in places.
"The trailer was basically emptied because it was ripped apart," said Ross Williams, the Canada Post supervisor who attended the site. "I was really wondering how we were ever going to clean this up."
Williams could see gathering mail from the steep slope would require climbing harnesses, ropes and helmets - equipment the post office doesn't normally stock.
As luck would have it, a maintenance crew had been working on the bridge and was staying in a nearby hotel.
"Their boss said, 'We'll shut down what we're doing and help you,"' said Williams. "We were pretty fortunate."
Workers rappelled down to the site and were lowered by crane to the cab, another 40 metres below.
Most of the mail was back in Edmonton by early in the week, Williams said.
Undamaged items will be re-sorted and re-sent, she said. Damaged envelopes or boxes will be patched and sent on accompanied by an explanatory letter.
Items with now-illegible addresses or addresses that have been torn from their packaging will go to the dead letter office until they're reclaimed.
RCMP found the two occupants of the truck outside the cab.
One man, Robert Sloane, 59, of Woodstock, Ont., was strapped to a back support board, hauled out of the gorge by firefighters with ropes and pulleys and airlifted to hospital in Edmonton.
The other man, Raymond Johnston, 43, of Chatham, Ont., was found conscious and sitting up some distance from Sloane. He was driven to the same hospital where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
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