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.
Didn’t Obama just spend a Trillion dollars on “ROADS AND BRIDGES” “ROADS AND BRIDGES”, ROADS AND BRIDGES.....
Yes, I think you're right.
NO no the bridge collapse problem was addressed by our great federal government in the late 70s THE NATIONAL BRIDGE INSPECTION PROGRAM. Nothing to see here move o”a trucker on drugs and talking on his cell phone hit the bridge?
LOL - none of us are ever going to buy into lame liberal excuses again... we have their number. Only the MSM still believes them...
Talking to myself now it’s that bad! Iwas wrong, it appears that an eye witness saw a over height load strike the bridge yeah latch on every thing is OK! It’s not this administration’s fault
I was thinking they were all driving VW Beetles, but that works too.
I am more awake now.
Yes, Truman left office in 1953 and the bridge was built in 1955 but obama has shown us anything bad the happens for at least the next five years is the last guys fault.
Also when assign fault on forums logic and facts can and should be avoided at all cost.
and realize many are paid to do that. this was documented here as well in the recentpast, libs are and were paying people to develop online profiles to go onto targeted sites and spout the liberal lines and attack certain conservative posters that were identified as problematic because of their persuasive posts.
surprisingly, no. given how old some are. but generally, no.
it’s why when they do it’s sensationalized. usually they are still heavily used. generally it occurs on bridges where the traffic flow has grown to be far greater than designers imagined would be on the bridge,’which leads to a lot more weight on it for hours a day - rush hours - and for real popular roads on interstates that have a lot more trafic on them with larger vehicles, the wear and weight occasionally does an old bridge in.
of course this bridge was flagged as having problems a long time ago, so it isn’t a huge shock it finally failed. real assessments show you which ones are in real danger of catastrophic failure. i am sure we have others in other places that were rated as poor as this one.
and’i will’amend these remarks by saying the bridge probably would not have failed like this,mat this exact moment, if the oversized truck hadn’t hit its beams and caused this section to collapse.
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Heard a guy on KVI radio this morning and he said the Army Corp of Engineers could have something in place by next Wednesday. Probably a little optimistic but you get the point. If there was a will, there would be a way.
John Carlson made the point and I agree 100% with him that this SHOULD shine the light on how much of our gas tax money goes into the mass transit rat hole instead of road building and maintenance. This “crisis” should not be wasted and our legislators need to hear from us about putting the transportation dollars where they belong, for the roads. My own opinion is to let the bus/light rail riders pay for their precious buses and trains. You ride, you pay.
If you like our bridges, you’ll love our ancient ferry system.
The state has been controlled by democrats for 30+ years and there’s money for artsy-fartsy things but not the necessities.
Thing about buses is that they make sense only for a very small number of routes.
Say running up and down highway 99, that kind of thing.
Most rural or even suburban routes end up with a 10-20% occupancy rate.
A fifteen thousand pound vehicle going from place to place to haul, on average, three people?
Makes no sense.
Toss in the fact that many of the counties have a system set up for transportation of people who have medical issues, there’s a gal near me who DAILY gets transports to/from wherever I don’t know, but I know it is a county funded program and there is no bus service where I live.
So the rabid bus advocates LOSE that group as being part of their justification.
What a coinky-dink...a bridge on the NYS Thruway (I-90) collapsed back in 1987; killing 10 people............................... The night before I was on the that bridge, had my class been on Thursday night I would have been there at approximately the same time. Did the farmer ever collect for the use of his property? Probably not, its a strong republican area and Mario Cuomo Sr. was Governor at the time. The cause was the washing away of the rip rap base. Looking at his bridge it reminds me of the ones over the Mohawk river that were demolished by Army Reserve Engineers.
As a co-worker in my plant pointed out, the only way she could possibly be spending as much on birth control as she claimed would be if she had to pay someone(s) to get laid.
Jeesh, you’d think the guys could afford an extra 50 cents or so to cover the costs, eh?
Well, that’s not calculating the ones who demand a refund...
My point being there are some things reasonable people expect a reasonable gummint to spend money on.
Other things, not so much. Better yet, not at all!!
"We're the Peasants."
"They are the Ruling Class."
"They Know What's Best for Us."
Otherwise, it will be off to the Gulag for you.
Can’t get to the gulag.
The bridge fell down!
(Hey, we can hope, right?)
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