Manitoba road rescues hit 139

Far more people have been rescued off badly deteriorated winter roads in Manitoba than first thought, with the number going up to 139.

Manitoba Search and Rescue officials said Saturday that 81 people who were bogged down in muck on the impassable seasonal roads had been rescued. But on Sunday, officials revised that number.

George Leonard, the provincial commander for Manitoba Search and Rescue, said people were able to get out in various ways some were airlifted by helicopters and others picked up by people who managed to traverse the muddy roads and pick them up.

Earth-moving equipment was also used to improve the vehicles' path and many truckers were finally able to drive out on their own, Leonard said.

The rescue efforts, co-ordinated with RCMP and trucking firms, included deliveries of food and water to the stranded people, some of whom had been waiting for up to five days for help.

About 34 transport trucks were left behind in the muck. Arrangements will have to be made by the companies to retrieve the vehicles.

While it is believed everyone who was stuck is now free, the rescue teams will continue to perform sweeps of the area by air and by ground, Leonard said.

Despite warnings to stay off the roads, there are people who continue to risk the drive because most of the remote First Nations communities in central and northern Manitoba are otherwise only accessible by air.

The roads are temporary byways carved through bush and across frozen muskeg, lakes, rivers and creeks to temporarily connect those regions with the rest of the province.

They enable trucks to haul in a year's worth of supplies, such as food, fuel and construction materials.

Harrowing experience

The experience of driving on the winter roads turned into a harrowing adventure for two brothers.

Chris Buss left St. Theresa Point, about 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg, last Sunday and was expected home in Beausejour on Wednesday.

When he didn't make it to the town, about 50 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, Buss's brother, Shawn Buss, started to worry.

Buss is diabetic and Shawn was concerned his insulin supply was getting low.

The brothers had some intermittent contact on a satellite phone at one point and Shawn was aware his brother had become stuck.

He also knew supplies of food, fuel and warm clothes were running low for Buss and other truckers stranded with him. So Shawn decided to chance the roads to get his brother, who was about 300 kilometres north of Beausejour.

He drove his pickup on Saturday, crossing bush roads that were the worst he'd ever seen.

They were scarred with deep ruts and littered with rocks, he said.

'It makes a guy think, like, What the hell am I doing out here?' Chris Buss, trucker

"With a half-ton truck I'll go through way more than a semi will. I don't even know how they made it [as far as they did]," he said, adding many of the trucks suffered extensive damage.

"It's devastating."

Chris Buss said it was a scary experience being stranded for several days.

"It makes a guy think, like, 'What the hell am I doing out here? I could be sitting in Winnipeg, driving up and down the streets, but now we're sitting in the swamp,'" he said, adding he would only consider driving that route again in the dead of winter when the roads are frozen solid.