Season premiere of Highway Thru Hell showcases Coquihalla destruction, Merritt evac efforts

If you live in British Columbia, you should absolutely be tuning into the new season of Highway Thru Hell.

The popular show typically showcases the hard work of crews from Jamie Davis Towing who are tasked with cleaning up accidents and freeing commercial trucks from the carnage of the Coquihalla during the winter.

You will get more of that this season, but the grand focus of this year’s episodes will be the catastrophic events of last fall where the highway was destroyed by a historic storm.

The season premiere aired at 6 pm Monday on the Discovery Channel and it was a sight to behold.

The wait is almost over! An ALL NEW season of #HWYThruHell starts MONDAY, September 26th at a new time! Tune in on @DiscoveryCanada at 9pm ET/6pm PT pic.twitter.com/dQ9k5WKP8p

— Highway Thru Hell (@HWYThruHell) September 13, 2022

Footage from the show’s crews put you right in the middle of the disaster and Monday’s episode already provided never-before-seen footage of the events of Nov. 15.

One of the company’s youngest members was on his way to rescue a motorhome from being sucked into the surging Coquihalla River when he stumbled upon the giant mudslides that cut off the road north of Hope.

From there, it’s an all out rescue to evacuated drivers stranded on the north side of the slide, urging them to get back to Merritt before there is more significant damage.

Thanks for watching #HWYThruHell! And a huge thank you to all the crews who worked around the clock to keep people safe and open the roads during the extreme weather events of November 2021. Tune in again next MONDAY for another unforgettable episode on Discovery Canada pic.twitter.com/l4yKlr1fb3

— Highway Thru Hell (@HWYThruHell) September 27, 2022

Against all odds, crews manage to do so, but that means semi trucks dumping their multi-million dollar loads of goods in order to turn around to flee the situation.

Passenger vehicles were virtually driving through a river near Othello, where the entire westbound lanes of the highway were completely washed away just hours later.

When the sun rose the next morning, that section of the highway was gone and three bridges were completely destroyed, as we all know now, and Jamie Davis’ crews began frantic efforts to save a fourth bridge.

Thousands of pounds of rock were used to save bridges from the torrential floods #HWYThruHell pic.twitter.com/kAq8auIj3n

— Highway Thru Hell (@HWYThruHell) September 27, 2022

Part of the episode turns its focus to evacuation efforts in Merritt, one of the crew member’s hometown, where they use an old army vehicle turned tow truck to get to trapped residents.

The season premiere was just the tip of the iceberg, as the whole season will partially focus on the destruction from last November, and you don’t want to miss the inside look.

New episodes will air Mondays at 6 pm PT on the Discovery Channel and you can catch them on the CTV app as well.

The season premiere is available to watch for free, but we can’t be sure if the rest of the season will be as well.