Sea to Sky Highway will be safe, IOC told

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics has tried to reassure the International Olympic Committee that the Sea to Sky Highway will be a safe route for the Winter Games following the rock slide that shut down the only direct route between Vancouver and Whistler for days last week.

Organizing committee CEO John Furlong, who is in Beijing to learn from China's Olympic experience, said on Thursday he briefed IOC officials about the July 29 slide above Porteau Cove.

Furlong said IOC officials wanted to know about the safety of the road and alternate routes should a similar slide happen during the Winter Games.

"Whatever it is that might come along we'll have the strategies for whatever the scenario … but we're not there yet," Furlong told CBC News.

In its progress report presented to the IOC Wednesday, the Vancouver Organizing Committee said the transportation system — including the Canada Line from the airport in Richmond, B.C., to downtown Vancouver and improvements to the Sea to Sky Highway — are showing "excellent progress."

The slide above Porteau Cove on the night of July 29 dropped an estimated 16,000 cubic metres of rock onto the highway. It took five days for crews to blast off overhanging rock and then remove the debris before traffic flowed again.