Bay Bridge Tunnel wind procedure debated in lawsuit
Lawyers allege ‘secret policy’ in trial over 2017 fatality
It’s all in howyou measure the wind. Gusts? Or average speed? That’s at the core of a trial that began Tuesday in the death of a trucker whose 18-wheeler plunged over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in 2017.
Billie Jo Chen is suing the CBBT for $6 million, saying its staff made a mistake when they allowed her husband, Joseph Chen, to cross the span with a nearly empty trailer on an exceptionally windy day.
Chen’s suit says the bridge-tunnel violated its own wind regulations, which bar particular types of traffic under particular conditions.
In a courtroom in Northampton County, Chen’s attorneys took it a step further, accusing the CBBT of operating under a “secret policy” that’s based on average wind speed but ignores gusts — which can be stronger and show up long before or independent of a steady blow.
Stretched across themouthof the bay— a natural wind funnel — the CBBT can be an unforgiving span: 17.6 miles from Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore, with nowhere to turn around or retreat from storms that can roll in quickly.
CBBT police — it has its own force — make the decisions about when to restrict traffic. Relying on data from fourWeatherHawk stations placed at intervals along the span, they follow a six-level policy that clamps down as winds climb.
Tractor-trailers like Joseph Chen’s — empty or lightly loaded — are forbidden when winds exceed Level 1, which tops out at 46 mph. But according to the CBBT’s own logs, blasts as high as 50 mph were detected as Chen was being allowed to attempt his crossing.
Rather than dispute the logs, CBBT lawyers told Judge Les Lilly that gusts don’t count. Attorney JeffHunn said that average wind speed is what triggers the different steps of the facility’s traffic policy. Even then, the readouts from a single Weather
Hawk might not be considered reason enoughtoalter traffic. Sometimesthat takes the average of two gauges.
Amanda Dure, an attorney representing Chen, said the CBBT’s written policy doesn’t include such information, and said the traveling public assumes the bridgetunnel is linking its safety levels to the detection of gusts.
Joseph Chen, 47, from Greenville, North Carolina, was killed on Feb. 9, 2017, on the home-bound leg of an all-night seafood delivery route. Around noon, he’d reached the north end of the CBBT, where trucks were waiting out a powerful storm. Level 4 restrictions (60-64 mph winds) had kept all tractor-trailers off the span for most of the morning.
He’d just pulled into a parking space
whenrestrictionswere reduced to Level1at 12:01pm.
CBBT police said they typically wait 15-20 minutes before reducing levels to try to ensure weather has stabilized. With just 2,193 pounds of seafood, pallets and a pallet jack toweigh downhis trailer, Joseph Chen headed across the CBBT in procession that included at least 80 other semis.
He was the only one who didn’t make it that day.
CBBTattorneys said they intend to show that Joseph Chen caused his accident by driving recklessly. If they can demonstrate that hewas even1% at fault, they said, that’s enough under Virginia law to find the bridge-tunnel not liable.
According to court filings, they’ll also argue that theCBBThas sovereignimmuni
ty like other governmental entities and is largely shielded fromnegligence lawsuits.
Chen attorneys say there are ways around that. They played a video of a deposition given by one of Joseph Chen’s co-workers, who was driving a heavierladen rig just a truck-length or so behind Chen that day.
Near mile marker 15, he said he saw Chen’s trailer get lifted off the asphalt before the entire rig shot hardto the left and through the guardrail.
Chen escaped his cab but died of hypothermia and drowning.
The trial is expected to last three or four days. Judge Lilly’s verdict is expected to come aweek or so after.