Semi-truck crash causes indefinite closure of Hood River-White Salmon Bridge

On Thursday morning, a semi-truck hauling an excavator caused severe damage to the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge when an excavator it was hauling struck the lift span above the traffic lanes. The Port of Hood River immediately closed the nearly mile-long bridge spanning the Columbia River until “further notice.” No injuries were reported at the time of the crash. Engineering crews are continuing to assess the damage to the 100-year-old bridge and will provide an update about its status after a meeting scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday, according to Kevin Greenwood, director of the Port of Hood River. Officials have advised motorists to find alternative routes, including The Bridge of the Gods in Cascade Locks and The Dalles Bridge. Greenwood joins us to talk about the latest developments, along with White Salmon Mayor Marla Keethler, who shares the impact of the closure on residents in the Columbia Gorge.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Yesterday morning, a semi-truck hauling an excavator caused severe damage to the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge. No injuries were reported, but the Port of Hood River immediately closed the nearly mile-long bridge until further notice while engineers assess the damage. Kevin Greenwood is the director of the Port of Hood River. Marla Keethler is the mayor of White Salmon. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.

Marla Keethler: Hi, Dave. Thanks for having us.

Kevin Greenwood: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.

Miller: Good afternoon. Kevin Greenwood, first. What happened on the bridge yesterday?

Greenwood: So very briefly, a semi-truck with a lowboy trailer had an excavator on its back. Unfortunately, the excavator was too high and as it was going under the bridge-lift truss, it damaged about six lateral racings on that lift structure.

Miller: OK. What does that mean, practically – six lateral bracings on a lift structure?

Greenwood: So as you go on to the lift portion of the Hood River Bridge, there’s a structure above the travel lanes and that provides support for that section of the bridge that actually goes up when a boat or a vessel needs to go under the bridge and requires a lift. And so it damaged the stability of that portion of the bridge that is intended to be lifted and lowered based upon maritime travel.

Miller: I know you’re not an engineer, but what did you see when you visited the bridge yesterday?

Greenwood: Yeah, it was very disturbing. This is pretty thick steel. This is half-inch steel, gusset plates and beams. And to see this steel torn or ripped was pretty disturbing, especially considering that the vehicle didn’t stop after the initial impact. And so to be able to continue on and not feel that impact initially was a little bit surprising to me.

Miller: I got to say, I looked at some of the pictures that the port provided and it almost looked like someone had taken enormous kitchen shears and cut into the steel as if it were construction paper. It’s always worrisome when you can actually, as a layperson, I don’t see steel that’s sort of shredded like that.

Greenwood: It’s a little alarming. And so when we realized what had happened, it didn’t take staff more than 30 seconds to shut the bridge down. We do not make those decisions lightly because of the impacts to White Salmon, Bingen, Klickitat County and also the Hood River County residents. But my number one concern at all times is the safety of the travelers.

Miller: Well, Mayor Keethler, let’s turn to those impacts. Can you just, first of all, remind us what this bridge means to communities on either side of the Columbia?

Keethler: Sure. If you live in this area, we really operate as one community. I think it’s hard to understate the mutual interdependence between our three cities, especially whether it’s work or childcare, medical services or just families being on both sides of the river. It is a daily commute that we make. It is the one way to get over Hood River from White Salmon and a detour is always about an hour long. You’re going 25 miles in either direction east or west to get to the next crossing point over the Columbia.

Miller: So how much traffic does the bridge see every day, given what you’re talking about?

Greenwood: That really depends on the time of year. There’s about 4 million trips annually. But I’d say that’s anywhere between 10,000 to 15,000 trips per day.

Miller: Marla Keethler, we’re at the beginning of the summer season, a few days away from July 4th. With the timing of this closure – indefinite so far – what does it mean in terms of the potential impact on communities and on tourism dollars?

Keethler: Well, it’s concerning on a few fronts. And certainly, you’re thinking of tourism for the summer time. But I would say locally here, another thing that’s top of mind is just fire risk. And it was about this time last year that the Tunnel 5 fire broke out just nearby in Skamania County, Washington. So again, this bridge is also a critical access point for emergency response. It is the evacuation route, if we see a similar situation unfold in the near term. It’s also where our co-responders agencies would be coming from if there was a fire on either side. So that’s top of mind.

You mentioned tourism and certainly recreation is a huge draw into the scenic area. So that is something we’re thinking about. But I think right now when we’re considering contingency planning, it’s really about that day-to-day use of our residents and knowing that this is a direct and immediate impact, not only on employers who have staff that’s on both sides of the river, but also the employees, the families that will be affected by lost shifts or additional commute time and just some of those essential services, especially when you’re talking about medical needs and childcare access.

Miller: Well, what kinds of contingency plans are you talking about? What’s even possible?

Keethler: This has always been our fear and as you know, we’ve spoken about it before. But [it’s] also why we’ve been emphasizing so much the need to replace this bridge because when it’s not operable or accessible – I talked about it earlier – that road detour is an hour in either direction. So we’re currently working with our agencies that we partner with in the public transit space in both counties to determine what potential shuttle options could exist.

I would say at this stage, from my perspective, nothing’s off the table. Certainly, it is a river and so what potential opportunities could exist to be ferrying people in an interim situation? But we’re really trying to right now gauge what some of those critical needs are so that we can prioritize if there is a shuttle, what timing or what that route would look like. And ultimately, everyone in the communities on both sides is dealing with this impact and so trying to make sure that people feel supported through the community and that we’re getting through this together, and that it’s not a singular situation that any person is navigating.

Miller: Kevin Greenwood, have engineers told you yet what the worst-case scenario might be?

Greenwood: Yeah. So we are meeting. We’ve had a small army of engineers on site. They’ve been really studying this issue for the last 24 hours. Right now, the bridge is closed for vehicular traffic, certainly for the next 24 hours. We are having a meeting with the engineers and our locally elected, at least some of our liaison-elected officials at one o’clock where we will be getting an administrative report from the engineering team. I’m very hopeful that we will be able to open this up shortly.

But at the end of the day, as the owner-operator of the Hood River Bridge, we want to make sure that that this bridge is safe, and that any reports from the engineers are written down, and that there’s executive summaries that the public can generally understand, and that that be issued with our decision to open the bridge. But I’m hopeful that we will be able to open this bridge early next week, if not sooner.

Miller: If I may, is that hope just based on vibes or is it based on information you’ve gotten from engineers up to this point, right?

Greenwood: Right now, they’re in a discovery stage. They have been out there studying the bridge, doing calculations, making assessments and taking third party independent peer reviewers. So there’s a lot of information being dispersed right now. It’s a whole body of work. After one o’clock, we’ll have a much better understanding on how we’re going to move forward.

Miller: And finally, Marla Keethler, you mentioned that we’ve talked about this before. We talked not too long ago with your counterpart, with somebody else who’s working on the new bridge to replace this current one, this 100-year-old bridge. Do you think that an incident like this will have an impact on your efforts to raise money for the new project?

Keethler: Well, I think it certainly reinforces the sense of urgency and how vulnerable the structure is. As you mentioned about the photos earlier, it is very concerning to just see the condition that something like this brings forward on that structure. And so we’ve been encouraged that we’ve heard from all of our federal partners on this project. Certainly, it’s on their mind since, as you said, we were very excited to start the year receiving the $200 million INFRA (the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects program) grants and federal funding for that project.

So we’re reassured that they are also paying attention. I think we all are taking seriously the sense of urgency. But [we are] also ready if we need to shift course because of an implication from this accident or another accident that would move up that timeline, and how we could leverage those relationships and the different agencies to make sure that we move forward as fast as possible with a new bridge.

Miller: Marla Keethler and Kevin Greenwood, thanks very much.

Keethler: Thank you.

Miller: Marla Keethler is the mayor of White Salmon, Washington. Kevin Greenwood is a director of the Port of Hood River.

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