BC weather: Storm closes Highway 4 on Vancouver Island

A nearly 40-kilometre stretch of Highway 4 on Vancouver Island was closed Tuesday evening due to the effects of a storm expected to hit the south coast.

DriveBC announced the closure between Coombs and Port Alberni just before 6 p.m

The Port Alberni RCMP said in a social media post that the closure was due to “unsafe conditions” and that the detachment had already been dispatched to “multiple” crashes due to the treacherous mix of high winds and downed trees.

Before the highway was closed, the Port Alberni Fire Department said there was a report of a “tree falling on a semi-truck.”

The closure comes as a ‘bomb cyclone’ descends on the region, with forecasters predicting wind speeds of up to 120 km/h.

BC Ferries preemptively canceled all its Tuesday evening sailings between the mainland and Vancouver Island.