major section of bridge collapses about 45 minutes from Seattle

[Lex]

Cars and people went in the water, as a major section of bridge completely collapsed and dropped din the water below. It looked like a pretty substantial drop as well. I don't have details other than what I heard on news on local news earlier. I hope everyone survives.

[P-Dub]

More details here:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Report-I-5-bridge-collapses-over-Skagit-River-cars-in-water-208758631.html

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Cars-bodies-in-Skagit-River-after-I-5-Bridge-collapse--208760201.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/23/us/was...html?hpt=hp_t3

I travel across this bridge every time I head down to Seattle. The section that collapsed is on the north side of the bridge. There is a report that an oversize truck hit the bridge girders and started the collapse. This is probably still to be confirmed.

Traffic is being affected south bound and is reportedly back up all the way to the Canadian Border. This is about 70 miles from the collapsed bridge. [update] I just checked some web cams and I don't see this backup at the border. There is going to be some major traffic and detour while the bridge gets fixed over the next few months or even years. [end update]

This is going to be a huge impact as I-5 is a main highway.

From reports 3 people were rescued and two are at the hospital, but stable condition.

I am just amazed that there were not more cars in the water. Even during off peak hours, this is a fairly well traveled bridge. typical speeds through this area is between 50 to 60 MPH and the bridge has a total of 4 lanes, 2 north and 2 south. This leads me to speculate that the oversize load carrying truck to be the main culprit. It holds up traffic behind it and as people see it hit the structure and pop up, people know enough to slow down or even stop.

[madmac]

Paul....

Boarder = Someone that rides a skate board or someone who is staying at someone's house paying rent.

Border = Line between two places (ie....a country)

Hehehe.......just razzin' ya dude !!

[P-Dub]

I donut know what your talking about.

Regardless, their shirley going to have there hands full repairing or rebuilding that bridge.

[wkhanna]

ageerd, I hvae kno cleu waht hees giogn on aobut ?

[madmac]

Exactly! !

[wkhanna]

exactly! !

:rofl:

[Lex]

The moment where someone corrects your spelling for no apparent reason when the word used is a perfectly good one? That's priceless.

My barber didn't even get it on the phone today when I asked, "hair are you". lol I don't think she got it, that I said hair, not how.

[Lex]

You know I have to say, those pillars under this metal framework look insufficient for the load to begin with. They should have been 2 or 3 times as wide! Maybe it's the angle, but it sure looks that way to me.

[madmac]

The moment where someone corrects your spelling for no apparent reason when the word used is a perfectly good one? That's priceless.

My barber didn't even get it on the phone today when I asked, "hair are you". lol I don't think she got it, that I said hair, not how.

I do lots of stuff for no apparent reason Lex !!

[Chris D]

I don't know what's up with the driver of the oversized vehicle that struck the bridge. From the news that I read, his vehicle was just too big to fit through. If that's the case, it's very straightforward. Trips with oversized vehicles have to be planned out in advance, and there are DOT resources to make sure you fit through every underpass and on every bridge and road that you use for your trip. It'll be very clear if he and his company didn't follow procedures.

[P-Dub]

From what I have read and heard, the driver/company did get the appropriate permits to carry the oversize load as well as had a pilot truck infront. What I would like to know is why was there no communication from the pilot truck back to the oversize load truck?

Yes the height of the load was far greater than the lowest part of the bridge. 15.5' vs a clearance of something like 14.5'. That's pretty huge. Not going to look very well on the company and the driver as they are ultimately responsible.

[Chris D]

I'm sure the NTSB is doing an accident investigation. They'll get to the bottom of it, whether the bridge was mis-labeled, or the wrong height in the DOT database, or whatever. Since it's a major bridge on the very highly travelled I-5, though, if there was some problem with the bridge or on the DOT side, you would think it would have come to light before this. Something tells me this was on the trucking company.

[Hdale85]

Well if the permit approved it even though the height wasn't high enough you'd think that would fall on the DOT as they have all the information I'm sure on bridge heights and so on.

[Chris D]

yeah we just don't know enough yet, what numbers were wrong, and who knew what. I'm sure we'll find out though.