Work will soon begin to remove the steel, pavement and cars that tumbled into the Skagit River Thursday night when a section of the I-5 bridge collapsed.
It is hoped that will pave the way for plans to construct a temporary fix and get traffic flowing once again along the highway.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are now examining every inch of the bridge and one thing they have already discovered is that the bridge had been hit before.
“This bridge has a history of over-height vehicle hits,” says Debbie Hersman with the board.
And the most recent hit happened just seven months ago.
When the truck hit the overpass on Thursday, it was heading southbound in the right-hand lane, and it turns out if the truck had been in the left lane, the collapse may never have happened, because the clearance on the left-hand side is almost a meter higher.
But while the investigation continues, there is still the practical matter of fixing the bridge and re-opening traffic on the busy corridor — something that’s a priority for Washington State’s governor.
“A plan has been developed by the department of transportation using temporary steel girders to restore four lanes on the same corridor where the bridge actually collapsed, and if things go well, it could be in place by mid-June,” says state governor Jay Inslee.
With a temporary fix in place, more detailed repair work would then begin, with the goal of finishing the new bridge by the fall.
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