It was a long Thursday night and Friday morning for a long line of motorists trying to head eastbound on Highway 401 through Drumbo.
Thursday, around 10 p.m., Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) closed all eastbound lanes of the highway due to icy conditions.
It didn’t open until 7 a.m. Friday.
Contributing to the closure was an 18-wheeler and several other cars in the ditch, not being cleared until shortly after 6 a.m. Friday.
The closure, however, was not lifted until an hour later.
Motorists were left with no detour route available, and hazardous road conditions around them for nine hours.
One of them, Ramin Roghani, reached out to the 570 NewsRadio newsroom.
Roghani had been trying to get his sick son to Toronto from London.
“My wife and my son are in another car, a couple of cars ahead of us. I just picked up my son from London. He was sick, so I had to drive him back to Toronto, and that’s what happened.”
He said he had no idea this was going to happen, and has been trying to keep warm with jackets, mitts, and scarves.
“The problem is I’m driving an electric vehicle, so I’m turning my heater off just to keep my battery so I don’t get stuck on the road.”
Although the closure lifted around 7 a.m., the delays did not, with treacherous conditions on the highway still slowing down the drive.
Highway 401 through Drumbo just after 9:00 a.m. on Nov. 28, 2025. (Ontario traffic camera)