Trucker ‘horrified’ at bridge collapse
Busy U.S. road corridor paralyzed
BURLINGTON, WASH. — A day after a Spruce Grove trucker struck a bridge on the major thoroughfare between Seattle and Canada, sending one of the bridge’s four spans into a river, nearby roads were clogged Friday with freight trucks and commuters seeking detours.
The bridge collapse sent two vehicles 15 metres into the Skagit River below. All three occupants suffered only minor injuries.
Long marked on a national register as being “functionally obsolete,” the northernmost span of the Interstate 5 bridge rested Friday in a crumpled heap in the river, knocked down after William Scott, 41, clipped several of the 58-yearold bridge’s spans with heavy drilling equipment he was hauling to Vancouver, Wash., according to the Washington State Patrol.
Scott’s wife, Cynthia Scott, said her husband had all the correct permits and at least 20 years of trucking experience. He had driven that same route before, she said.
“He’s doing OK, best as he can,” Scott said from her Spruce Grove home. She spoke with her husband seconds after the collapse. “He looked in the mirrors and it just dropped out of sight. … He was just horrified.”
She said there was a small ding in one of the front corners of the load — not what you would expect if a truck had hit hard enough to bring a 49-metre-long bridge span down. She wonders if the 339-metre-long bridge was already falling apart as the truck was going across.
“It would seem extremely strange that something so small could topple a bridge,” said Scott, noting officials are thinking of impounding the truck. “It does seem very bizarre that something like this did happen.”
Ed Sherbinski, vice-president of Mullen Trucking based in Calgary, which owned the truck Scott was driving, said four company inspectors were travelling to Washington to be part of the investigation. He said Washington State had given the company a permit, saying the truck would fit over the bridge.
“We take this very very seriously,” Sherbinski said. “We have a stellar safety record and all our resources are on this now.”
He said a lead truck typically drives in front of such heavy loads, equipped with a high-reaching electronic pole that sends signals to the other driver if the pole touches any guide wires or support structures. Sherbinski said he doesn’t know how high the pole was compared with Scott’s vehicle, but it usually reaches “significantly” higher.
The spectacular collapse unfolded about 7 p.m. Thursday on the north end of the fourlane bridge near Mount Vernon, about 96 kilometres north of Seattle and 64 kilometres south of the Canada border.
Dan Sligh and his wife were in their pickup heading to a camping trip when he said the bridge before them disappeared in a “big puff of dust.”
“I hit the brakes and we went off,” Sligh told reporters from a hospital.
State politicians and federal investigators say the region — which includes a vital U.S.Canada trade corridor — will have to get used to long and frustrating detours
The bridge carried 70,000 vehicles each day.
Debbie Hersman, chairwoman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said Friday it could take as long as a year to complete an investigation of the accident.