The Chilliwack Progress Friday, November 14, 2014
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Highway Thru Hell returns Kerrie-Ann Schoenit Black Press The new season of Highway Thru Hell will highlight the challenges of running operations in two provinces. Last season, Hope’s Jamie Davis Heavy Rescue lost a significant amount of business in B.C. when a new competitor scooped up half the recoveries, forcing Jamie Davis to seek new opportunities to off-set the restrictions. Taking a gamble, he moved into Alberta to tackle Highways 881 and 63, setting up a second operation out of Lac La Biche while maintaining headquarters in Hope. “This season is going to be exciting because of the two locations. The fact that all us guys are split up in different places has changed the whole template,” said Davis, pointing out that the company has tripled in size in the last year and a half and there are now more than 40 trucks in the fleet. “Business is booming in Alberta in comparison to what we’re doing in Hope. With the competition and the economy in British Columbia being so hard, the status quo now is we utilize more of our older, paid for trucks in Hope because it just doesn’t justify new equipment.” Alberta’s Highway 881 runs north 300 kilometres through remote forest, muskeg, and tundra between Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray. On a route supplying more energy to the U.S. than Saudi Arabia, hundreds of millions of dollars of heavy equipment must be moved daily on this narrow, two-lane highway into newly-discovered oil and gas fields. Almost 60,000 shift workers are in camps serviced by Highway 881, and on shiftchange day, thousands of workers need to get home. Davis sent his best drivers and trucks to the Alberta oil patch and tasked Adam Gazzola to manage the new Alberta startup. His crew includes
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To protect the Fraser River from a toxic waste facility To feel safe in our city again To protect Chilliwack’s history A city where opportunity flourishes A Mayor that is open, transparent and accountable
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Jamie Davis and his Hope crew are back for another season of Highway Thru Hell.
Colin McLean, a city driver fresh from Vancouver who has to earn Gazzola’s respect. Deep snow, bitter cold, and big recoveries that dwarf most loads in B.C. push Gazzola’s team to the limit. Back in B.C., Davis faces more challenges this season. During the heaviest snowfall and worst avalanche conditions in decades,
he’s left with a skeleton crew of new hires and old trucks in his battle to keep the Coquihalla Highway open. New drivers include Howie Irwin, a highly-skilled heavy recover y vet who used to work the Coquihalla for Davis and his brother before buying his own truck and moving to the city; and Don Starr, a 20-year mountain vet-
eran with MacGyverlike ingenuity. “This season you can really see the differences between the types of weather. Hope has heavy, wet snow conditions versus dry, blowing snow and colder temperatures in Alberta,” said Davis. “The brutal conditions there are hard on people. The cold weather Continued: RESCUE/ p22
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