Posted on 05/24/2013 12:18:57 AM PDT by djf
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — A portion of an Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River, about 60 miles north of Seattle, collapsed Thursday, sending three vehicles and people plunging into the cold water at least 50 feet below.
Amazingly, there were no fatalities, Skagit County authorities said. Three people were pulled from the river and taken to Skagit Valley Hospital and United General Hospital; two were reported to be in stable condition, the other had minor injuries and was being released Thursday night.
The survivor who was released was identified as Dan Sligh, 47. His wife, Sally Sligh, 56, remained in the hospital. The other injured person was reported to be a 20-year-old man.
Both the northbround and southbound lanes of the northern section of the bridge collapsed at about 7 p.m.
This section of I-5 runs between the Washington cities of Burlington and Mount Vernon.
When rescuers arrived, people were sitting on top of their submerged cars. The water is about 18 feet deep where the bridge collapse took place.
Gov. Jay Inslee headed to the scene to monitor the rescue efforts, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it was monitoring the situation as well.
Inslee later told a news conference that repairing the bridge is “job No. 1″ and that it’s unknown how long it will take to replace the bridge. I-5 is a main north-south arterial for northwestern Washington state.He said he will authorize the Transportation Department to establish detour routes to minimize impact on traffic and commerce.
“Witnesses say a truck hit the bridge and caused it to collapse, but an investigation has been launched to confirm that,” Inslee said. “Any witnesses or people with information should contact the State Patrol.
“The National Transportation Safety Board is on their way tomorrow, and I’ve been in touch with our federal partners. We will be involved in a vigorous and diligent effort to get traffic flowing again through the Skagit bridge corridor and I will issue an emergency proclamation tomorrow to make sure we have the resources to do so as quickly as possible,” Inslee said.
Goskagit.com said one driver who had just crossed the bridge shortly before it collapsed told a reporter he felt a vibration and looked in his rear view mirror to see that the section of bridge he had just crossed was no longer behind him.
“I thought something was wrong with my car at first,” the man told the reporter about feeling the vibration.
The bridge was built in 1955, was inspected last November and it received passing grades, Treece said.
Regarding New York bridges ~ they're all owned and operated by the New York Port Authority ~ an independent interstate compact operation. For all practical purposes they are a pay as you go sort of thing, fairly close to what you'd get with a private bridge company!
We live on Camano. My wife and her mother drove over it around 2 pm. People drive over that bridge too fast and there are no shoulders to use to get out of harms’ way.
Yes, good observation.
Over-sized loads must be permitted, and routed. If the truck was over-height, it should have been escorted. The truck in question made it past the north end of the bridge. I find it hard to believe that a single truck could take down that span.
50% of the transportation dollars go to 3% of the traveling public that take alternate forms of transportation such as walking, biking, busing, and the train.
From this GoogTube-posted video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3n8z5Dn2Xs
While the cause of the collapse is still unknown, witnesses reported seeing a semitruck with an oversized load crossing the bridge and striking the beams on the north end before the bridge collapsed.
“I saw it. I was less than 50 feet away from the truck when it hit it,” witness Dale Ogden told KING 5. “I had just passed it in the fast lane southbound and it had an oversized load. It was approximately 12 feet wide and over 14 feet tall. It was in the slow lane when I came by...I was behind the flag car and in front of the truck in the other lane and I saw the whip - normally tells you how high they can clear - start hitting the bridge. I looked in my rearview mirror knowing this was not going to turn out well.”
“I saw the truck strike the right corner of the bridge. It almost tipped the truck over but it came back down. It tipped it up to about a 30 degree angle to the left and it came back down on its wheels and almost instantaneously behind that I saw girders falling in my rearview mirror.”
Washington Department of Transportation officials were investigating reports that the truck had struck the bridge.
Xavier Grospe, 62, who lives near the river, said he could see three cars with what appeared to be one person per vehicle. The vehicles were sitting still in the water, partially submerged and partly above the waterline, and the apparent drivers were sitting either on top of the vehicles or on the edge of open windows.
So,
A) does this collapse give fodder for another big stimulus spending bill,
or
B) does this collapse raise the question: What happened to all the supposed infrastructure spending from the previous big stimulus spending bills?
==
Most of Washington and their compliant Media select A, while ignoring most of America’s yelling B.
I thought Obama was going to fix the bridges?
Pray for America to Wake Up
I was referring specifically to the road. The bridges in New York are marvels of engineering - and free as long as you’re walking or biking. The one that concerns me is the Manhattan Bridge and repeated torsion stress imposed by subways. Two trains on opposite sides of the bridge must cross at the same time to counterbalance the torsion, but the maximum stress when they first enter exacts a metal fatigue toll over time.
BTW, Happy 130th birthday today, Brooklyn Bridge!
Blame Canada eh? :P
all joking aside, I’m glad nobody was hurt. Too many stories these days, where the innocent are suffering at the hands of the feds.
“Functionally obsolete” means that the design of a bridge is not suitable for its current use, such as lack of safety shoulders or the inability to handle current traffic volume, speed, size, or weight.
Thanks for the info. I wonder who routed the truck.
Or was it Meshell??
SORRY TWO! IT’S THE CONOMY talkini
I blame this on electric car owners not paying their fare share of road taxes. We should outlaw electric cars!
Good question.
I would think that there would be a database of the bridges and their clearance heights posted so those companies moving big machinery could consult it.
Could the paint over the primer have popped due to movement of the underlying steel? From the image, and without knowing if that orange was primer or added later, I can’t understand what the color patterns show us.
PS Thanks for an excellent about page with - the how to data about FR page format was very appreciated.
Then there really isn’t ANY excuse for trucks to be running into bridges at least in the vertical direction!
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