Governor Inslee: Repair of collapsed I‑5 Skagit River Bridge is estimated at $15 million

It’s only been six­teen hours since a sec­tion of the bridge that car­ries Inter­state 5 over the Skag­it Riv­er col­lapsed, but already the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (WSDOT) is work­ing on a plan to put the span back together.

Experts have esti­mat­ed the cost of a bridge repair at around $15 mil­lion, accord­ing to an emer­gency procla­ma­tion signed by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee this morning.

U.S. Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood has already com­mit­ted $1 mil­lion in fed­er­al dol­lars towards the project. Fur­ther help is like­ly to be forth­com­ing from Wash­ing­ton State’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion; our senior sen­a­tor, Pat­ty Mur­ray, just so hap­pens to be the Chair of the Sen­ate’s Appro­pri­a­tions Sub­com­mit­tee on Trans­porta­tion, Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment and Relat­ed Agen­cies.

We have to ask: Would­n’t it make more sense to com­plete­ly replace this func­tion­al­ly obso­lete bridge, giv­en that one sec­tion of the span has already col­lapsed? The bridge is going to be out of ser­vice for a while. Per­haps a com­plete replace­ment would take more time to design and build. But it would save time, dis­rup­tion and mon­ey down the road (par­don the pun).

It’s trou­bling that a sec­tion of the exist­ing bridge was appar­ent­ly brought down by an over­height vehi­cle strik­ing the super­struc­ture. If that’s the kind of impact that could sud­den­ly send the bridge deck into the riv­er, then it’s not a bridge that I or any­one else at NPI wants to be dri­ving over any longer. Time to demol­ish this struc­ture and put in a new one engi­neered to mod­ern standards.

We have to get seri­ous about invest­ing in our infra­struc­ture. There is a rea­son that we at NPI are com­mit­ted to fight­ing Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry year in and year out. Tim’s destruc­tive ini­tia­tives pre­vent us from tak­ing care of prob­lems like this before they hap­pen. With­out fund­ing to replace func­tion­al­ly obso­lete and struc­tural­ly defi­cient bridges, we can’t head off bridge col­laps­es and bridge closures.

In 2005, when we fought Ini­tia­tive 912, NPI’s Wash­ing­ton Defense PAC paid for hun­dreds of signs shaped like orange con­struc­tion warn­ing signs read­ing, “NO 912 — SAFETY FIRST”. We used these signs dur­ing our Viaduct Haz­ard Demonstration.

In defeat­ing Ini­tia­tive 912, we saved the 2005 Trans­porta­tion Pack­age and allowed a whole host of high­way safe­ty projects to move forward.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the 2005 Trans­porta­tion Pack­age did­n’t include fund­ing to replace all of our age­ing bridges. That’s why a new pack­age is needed.

House Democ­rats pro­posed a new trans­porta­tion pack­age a few weeks ago, but unfor­tu­nate­ly it is ori­ent­ed around new high­way lanes. Law­mak­ers should repri­or­itze and adopt the mantra we used dur­ing the NO on I‑912 cam­paign: Safe­ty first!

The procla­ma­tion signed by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee this morn­ing declares that a state of emer­gency exists in Skag­it, Sno­homish, and What­com coun­ties, and puts Wash­ing­ton’s Mil­i­tary Depart­ment in charge of the response.

WHEREAS, a sec­tion of the Inter­state 5 bridge over the Skag­it Riv­er in Skag­it Coun­ty col­lapsed on May 23, 2013, clos­ing the Inter­state in both direc­tions, requir­ing imple­men­ta­tion of detours through adja­cent neigh­bo rhood road­ways, caus­ing exten­sive dis­rup­tion of the pri­ma­ry north and south bound trans­porta­tion route through West­ern Wash­ing­ton, and impact­ing our cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es and econ­o­my in Skag­it, Sno­homish and What­com Coun­ties; and

[WHEREAS] the esti­mat­ed cost to repair the bridge is $15,000,000. Repairs and nec­es­sary inter­state high­way clo­sures require the approval of Washington’s Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion, and the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion is coor­di­nat­ing resources and work­ing to imple­ment dam­age repairs. These emer­gency con­di­tions war­rant clo­sure of affect­ed road­ways for a sig­nif­i­cant peri­od and imple­men­ta­tion of emer­gency pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures to hire a con­trac­tor to repair the dam­age; and The road­way dam­age and its effects con­tin­ue to impact the life and health of our cit­i­zens, as well as the prop­er­ty and trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture of Wash­ing­ton State, all of which affect life, health, prop­er­ty, or the pub­lic peace, and con­sti­tute a pub­lic dis­as­ter demand­ing imme­di­ate action; and

[WHEREAS] the Wash­ing­ton State Mil­i­tary Depart­ment has acti­vat­ed the state Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Cen­ter, imple­ment­ed response pro­ce­dures, and is coor­di­nat­ing resources to sup­port local offi­cials in alle­vi­at­ing the imme­di­ate social and eco­nom­ic impacts to peo­ple, prop­er­ty, and infra­struc­ture, and is con­tin­u­ing to assess the mag­ni­tude of the event.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jay R. Inslee, Gov­er­nor of the state of Wash­ing­ton, as a result of the above — not­ed sit­u­a­tion and under Chap­ter 38.52 and 43.06 RCW, do here­by pro­claim that a Stat e of Emer­gency exists in Skag­it, Sno­homish, and What­com Coun­ties in the state of Wash­ing­ton, and direct the plans and pro­ce­dures in the Wash­ing­ton State Com­pre­hen­sive Emer­gency Man­age­ment Plan be imple­ment­ed. State agen­cies and depart­ments are direct­ed to uti­lize state resources and to do every­thing rea­son­ably pos­si­ble to assist affect­ed polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sions in an effort to respond to and recov­er from the event. As a result of this event, the Wash­ing­ton State Mil­i­tary Depart­ment, Emer­gency Man­age­ment Divi­sion, is instruct­ed to coor­di­nate all inci­dent — relat­ed assis­tance to the affect­ed areas.

A media avail­abil­i­ty has been sched­uled for 12:30 PM at the Skag­it Coun­ty Admin­is­tra­tive Build­ing. Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, State Patrol Chief John Batiste, and Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Lynn Peter­son will be joined by Sen­a­tors Mur­ray and Cantwell and Con­gress­woman Suzan Del­Bene, who rep­re­sents Mount Ver­non. They will be dis­cussing next steps and tak­ing ques­tions from reporters.

Inves­ti­ga­tors for the Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board (NTSB) are head­ed to the site and are expect­ed to join in the news con­fer­ence. The NTSB announced last night it was mobi­liz­ing to respond to the dis­as­ter. From their announce­ment:

The Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board has launched a go-team to inves­ti­gate the I‑5 bridge col­lapse over the Skag­it Riv­er in Mount Ver­non, WA. The col­lapse occurred at 7:00 pm local time, last evening.

High­way Safe­ty Inves­ti­ga­tor Robert Accetta will serve as the inves­ti­ga­tor-in-charge, lead­ing a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team of NTSB per­son­nel. An NTSB inves­ti­ga­tor from the Seat­tle office is en route to the scene and the remain­der of the team will arrive on-scene lat­er today.

NTSB Chair­man Deb­o­rah A.P. Hers­man is accom­pa­ny­ing the team and will serve as the prin­ci­pal spokesper­son dur­ing the on-scene phase of the investigation.

The NTSB is per­haps best known for inves­ti­gat­ing plane crash­es and avi­a­tion mishaps, but it also has the author­i­ty to take the lead in inves­ti­gat­ing oth­er inci­dents, like train derail­ments and high­way bridge failures.