Bridge Collapses in Washington State

[HighOctane]

A bridge collapsed about 20 miles North of where I live. I have crossed that bridge many times over the years. A friend of mine went over it just 2 hours before it went down. Amazingly on 3 vehicles went into the water and so far no casualties. All 3 people were rescued and are OK.

They believe that the cause was an oversized truck striking the metal structure causing the metal to buckle and ultimately the collapse. The truck made it over and then seconds later it went down.

This bridge is a major bridge on I-5 and averages 71,000 trips a day. There are not many choices to get over this river especially for Semi's. It will be interesting to see what happens.

A picture of the collapsed bridge is below.

 

[DragonKnight]

My buddy in California got the news before I did. He sent me a text asking me if I was okay and that some bridge collapsed. At first I was thinking he got the wrong state or something. Then he linked me to an online article and I was pretty much in shock. Crazy.

Rich

 

[Don65Stang]

Wow. That's something you don't see everyday. I'm glad no one was hurt.

 

[CZ-75]

Wow! You don't get the scale for that picture until you see the people standing on the bdridge.

Amazaing nobody was hurt badly.

 

[OLE PONY]

That's great no one was killed. This will start a whole new round on the bridge inspection debates.

 

[caspianwendell]

I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to ride a collapsing bridge down...those poor people must have been terrified.

 

[goodnigh]

That's great no one was killed. This will start a whole new round on the bridge inspection debates.

A while back they did a major upgrade to the Golden Gate and

recently replaced the Oakland Bay bridge section damaged in the '89

earthquake. Problem being they have found numerous bolts that

hold the bridge together to be defective or of sub standard quality.

mike

 

[Jim and Jutta]

We crossed that bridge just a couple of days ago on the way to our son's home.

The bridge which was built in 1955 has been on the radar for "several years" as needing replacing, that chant was used to raise taxes, especially gas taxes, after the money was raised, it was diverted for other uses. Our gas tax is already 30 cents a gallon higher than the national average (we're at $4.00 a gallon for regular) and they're taking steps to raise it another ten cents. Our Governor's proclaimed goal is to turn Washington State into the greenest State in the Country, although our State's huge debt precludes that from happening...so I'm afraid transportation related taxes meant for rebuilding infrastructure will continue to be diverted.

 

[hyena429]

Ya...all over the news here..Good thing no one was killed..But not the first bridge in history to go down due to overloaded trucks or a truck accident...And seems this bridge got alot of semi action plus being old and out of date.

 

[RonEvenson]

We are visiting relatives in Bellingham for the long weekend, and saw the bridge in person. It took us an hour to get through the detour, but to look over and see a huge part of that bridge gone was amazing, and I can't believe no one was killed

We are visiting relatives in Bellingham for the long weekend, and saw the bridge in person. It took us an hour to get through the detour, but to look over and see a huge part of that bridge gone was amazing, and I can't believe no one was injured

 

[HighOctane]

We crossed that bridge just a couple of days ago on the way to our son's home.

The bridge which was built in 1955 has been on the radar for "several years" as needing replacing, that chant was used to raise taxes, especially gas taxes, after the money was raised, it was diverted for other uses. Our gas tax is already 30 cents a gallon higher than the national average (we're at $4.00 a gallon for regular) and they're taking steps to raise it another ten cents. Our Governor's proclaimed goal is to turn Washington State into the greenest State in the Country, although our State's huge debt precludes that from happening...so I'm afraid transportation related taxes meant for rebuilding infrastructure will continue to be diverted.

The night it happened I said the same thing to my wife about the gas tax.

 

[Totalled]

We don't need no stinkin' bridge...