A section of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle collapsed after it was struck late Thursday by a heavy-duty truck, closing the West Coast’s main north-south highway in both directions.
The bridge — about 60 miles north of Seattle and 40 miles south of the Canadian border — was hit by a flatbed truck operated by Mullen Trucking, Alberta, Canada, that was carrying an oversize load, a Washington State Patrol spokesman said.
DETOUR UDPATE: The Washington State Department of Transportation has updated its detour maps. Click here for northbound detour, or click here for the southbound detour.
Three other motorists were injured in the incident, which state transportation officials said will disrupt freight routes between the U.S. and Canada, forcing traffic onto smaller roads, Bloomberg reported.
Ed Scherbinski, vice president of Mullen, said he was not sure one of his company’s trucks caused the collapse, but one of its trucks was at the scene, he said.
“We were there. We were involved,” Scherbinski said Friday. “But we don’t have all the story yet of what happened.”
Mullen sent investigators to the bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., on Friday to determine what happened and Mullen’s involvement, Scherbinski said.
The bridge carries more than 70,000 vehicles a day, including about 8,000 commercial trucks, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The truck was hauling a large steel box around 7 p.m. Thursday when the box hit a truss on the bridge, causing it to collapse, Sgt. Kirk Rudeen of the Washington State Patrol told Transport Topics.
“The load was equipment casing for a drilling rig,” Rudeen said. “It’s kind of a big huge steel box . . . that has the four walls, but the inside is clear. And it was sitting on the flatbed that the semi was hauling.”
Rudeen said he did not know if the truck had the proper permits to use the bridge with an oversize load.
The Washington State Department of Transportation, which issues such permits, did not immediately respond to request for comment.
WSDOT is sending vehicles through Mount Vernon to bypass the bridge, the Associated Press reported.
WSDOT Secretary Lynn Peterson told AP the agency is working on plans for a temporary or permanent replacement for the bridge, which was built in 1955.
