Visitors scramble to leave, staff stranded, supplies in short supply for a few days
Whistler businesses are focusing on the coming American Thanksgiving now that floodwaters are receding from the shores of Highway 99.
"We are relatively quiet until American Thanksgiving which is 30 days away," said Mike Duggan, general manager of the Pan Pacific and chair of Tourism B.C.
"That is what we are more concerned about, that the road is open, and we get the message out about early snow and go from there."
Highway closures and floods in nearby towns have certainly put a damper on resort business.
But most hotels and other operations are just glad it happened in the slow season and well before the American Thanksgiving which always packs the resort.
"I think it probably will affect us in the next seven to 10 days," said Duggan.
"I think people will be a little reluctant to get on the road until such time as they are assured that it’s back to normal.
"But I don’t think it will affect the long term at all."
Stranded guests at the Pan Pacific were offered complementary rooms until they could get back on the road again. The same offer was made all over town by various accommodation providers.
Even hotel staff stranded in Whistler got the same treatment.
"The (house cleaning staff) had arrived after the closure so they just moved into the hotel and we were able to continue on and I think they actually had a wonderful weekend and they were quite thrilled," said Duggan.
"Certainly Mother Nature has thrown everything she can at us this year."
It was the same situation over at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler said spokeswoman Sonja Hwang.
"We definitely had staff who were stranded staying here," she said.
Luckily conference goers at the Fairmont were able to get out of Whistler by air Sunday or were able to take the road when it re-opened intermittently Sunday evening.
"Because it is shoulder season the impact is much less," said Hwang.
"We are absolutely looking forward to the snow and the American Thanksgiving weekend."
Whistler Limousine owner Joel Wilson certainly hasn’t been in the driver’s seat during the last few days.
He managed to get about 150 clients out over the weekend on helicopters and floatplanes and the rest he carefully ferried down by road during intermittent openings.
But it’s been another blow to his business.
"The summer was an absolute killer with the business we lost," said Wilson. "We lost conference business with SARS, really it couldn’t have been worse. We couldn’t have anything worse happen to us in British Columbia."
But despite the poor summer and the affects of the road closures Wilson is upbeat. He said the coming winter promises great snow and his phone lines are ringing.
"Let’s just get us to Christmas," said Wilson. "Our bookings are incredible for the winter, amazing, better than ever.
"I am starting to get so many bookings and I am usually the last person they book so that is a very good sign."
Wilson sent many of his clients to Whistler Air and Helijet, which put on flights over the weekend despite the service being officially suspended until Dec. 15.
"It happened as a result of a lot of calls coming into our (reservations) office wondering what we could do to help out," said Rick Hall, vice-president of marketing for Helijet.
There have been grumblings about the offer as the flight cost $325 to Vancouver, up from the regular fare of $179.
But said Hill, the helicopters were basically flying only one way with passengers so they had to charge a return trip price to cover their costs.
"Helicopters are very expensive, and, in fact, we had people offering us more money, to be totally honest. We did not want to appear to be going in there and gouging customers when there was an issue going on so we based the price on what it would normally cost to fly a round trip.
"For the most part people were prepared to pay."
Last Saturday Whistler Air owner Michael Quinn was scrambling to deal with the hundreds of phone calls coming in from people looking for a way to get out of Whistler.
"The phone started ringing and I was here by myself and I couldn’t do anything except answer the phone," said Quinn of Saturday’s rush.
"I couldn’t even get off the phone long enough to ask for help. It was nuts. As soon as I put the phone down it would ring again.
"With the road out people needed to get down to the city and us and helicopters were the only option so we really wailed on Sunday and moved almost 400 people out of here.
"We just sub-chartered all the other equipment we could and away we went."
It cost $200 to fly to Vancouver by floatplane on Qiunn’s own planes and the others he chartered, which included some Twin Otters.
Crews had to do some remedial work around the dock to make sure the debris being washed down the River of Golden Dreams by floodwaters didn’t cause a problem. But all in all the extra weekend flights went off without a hitch.
"I think a good job was done by all the float plane company’s rallying together to pull it off and getting the people where they needed to get to," said Quinn.
"Most people were very good about it. There might have been less than half a dozen people who were anxious. The majority were pretty laid back and enjoyed the flight. It was a treat for a lot of people it is beautiful scenery and seeing the road and all that stuff it was quite a lot of fun for them."
Local grocery stores also were affected by the road closures. Shoppers cleaned the shelves of bread and other staples at Nesters but once the road opened again the shelves were full.
"We had some panic buying on the weekend," said Bruce Stewart, manager of Nesters.
"But I think in general people were pretty calm. There were certainly some pretty stressed people but nothing crazy. It wasn’t like there were fights over that last loaf of bread."
It was the same story at the Marketplace IGA.
"We were short on the weekend for a brief period of time on some of the perishable items, most notably was bread but it was just for a very short period of time," said manager Tim Pugh.
But what struck Pugh the most was the courteous way customers behaved.
"It is nice to see, when something like this does happen how patient people are, how understanding they are, and the concern in people’s voices about what is going on in Pemberton and Squamish," he said.
"I had one person say they weren’t going to buy milk because it might be needed to go to Pemberton in a helicopter."
One of the local gas stations also ran out of gas on Monday but tankers arrived before dawn Tuesday and drivers could take their fill.
"Everybody is taking it in stride," said Husky station manager Gail Skuce.
"It’s Mother Nature. What can you do but enjoy it and there is no use panicking since that just causes chaos."
"Yesterday, because the road opened, we were really busy in the morning with coffees and everybody gassing up to get in the line-up and go because they didn’t know how long they would be sitting."
