Holy Shit! I-5 Bridge over Skagit River (near Mount Vernon, Washington) Collapses

Iloveslimes

The bridge over I-5 North of Seattle collapsed into the river. At the moment all they know is that a few cars with people in them went into the water.

Moriveth

Shiiiiit!

VALVEjunkie

holy shit. I hope no one is injured too badly.

Athenor

Holy fuck!

Please let everyone be okay.

My first thought, though? --

God damnit, people, our infrastructure is 70 years old. We need to get on fixing this shit, like, YESTERDAY. That'll sure as hell stimulate things.

And give everyone fiber while you're at it.

Sweeney Tom

Jesus, I hope everybody's okay

BlankZoe

Oh my god what

This week fucking sucks

Hope everyone is okay

Iloveslimes

I saw it on a friend's facebook and didn't believe it at first.

Iloveslimes

This gives a better sense of scale.

spono

holy shit

Clint Eastwood

Too soon for a seattle thread joke?

Hope there's no fatalities, this stinks.

Fire Truck

Whoa, just found out about this. Half the folks I work with drive over that thing every day.

I guess it's a good thing I told my parents to take the ferry when they come visit this weekend.

any confirmation on injuries yet?

Iloveslimes

There's nothing definitive about injuries yet.

Artreus

Fire Truck wrote: »

Whoa, just found out about this. Half the folks I work with drive over that thing every day.

I guess it's a good thing I told my parents to take the ferry when they come visit this weekend.

any confirmation on injuries yet?

I was just about to text you to make sure you were alright

pretty glad you are

T4CT

Jesus

Taramoor

Interesting, on the news just now, that bridge is the primary route for goods to come from Canada to the entire west coast.

Fire Truck

Artreus wrote: »

Fire Truck wrote: »

Whoa, just found out about this. Half the folks I work with drive over that thing every day.

I guess it's a good thing I told my parents to take the ferry when they come visit this weekend.

any confirmation on injuries yet?

I was just about to text you to make sure you were alright

pretty glad you are

Yeah, the only time I use that bridge is driving to Seattle on the weekends.

still, this is gonna make visiting Danny and Trey this Sunday a little more complex.

scarlet blvd.

here's to hoping no one dies
and that they work on repairing their bridges
same thing happened in Minnesota with the 35W bridge

shame it takes something like this to remind states/people/stuff that bridges have to be checked and repaired

Artreus

Fire Truck wrote: »

Artreus wrote: »

Fire Truck wrote: »

Whoa, just found out about this. Half the folks I work with drive over that thing every day.

I guess it's a good thing I told my parents to take the ferry when they come visit this weekend.

any confirmation on injuries yet?

I was just about to text you to make sure you were alright

pretty glad you are

Yeah, the only time I use that bridge is driving to Seattle on the weekends.

still, this is gonna make visiting Danny and Trey this Sunday a little more complex.

Maaan. I really need to get out west

Marth

At first glance this doesn't seem as bad as the I35W collapse in Minnesota. Probably because that was during rush hour, and this was at about 7:30 pacific time, and this was pretty far from Seattle.

edit: but of course I hope everyone in those cars were able to get out okay.

Iloveslimes

So far it looks like only 3 cars fell and no one died. But all the news is preliminary at the moment.

nuka

I'm not aware of yet if any of my friends were hurt or not, but I'm pretty worried.

nuka

There's no other freeway up there. Alternative routes will rely on county highways, highway 99 and highway 9. Mount Vernon/Burlington have a hospital. The Skagit river splits the two cities.

Aside from Everett, this is the only major city until you get the Bellingham. Everett is pretty awful, so everyone I know around here goes shopping in the Mount Vernon area.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Yeah, I'm hoping no-one died or suffered severe injuries.

I seem to remember Colbert doing a bit on all the really old bridges in the US that should have been reinforced/replaced a long time ago only a few months back?

Ov3rcharge

I'm okay.
I was really close to it though. Pretty scary.

Pharezon

Definitely unrelated to politics.

Weaver

Pharezon wrote: »

Definitely unrelated to politics.

Oh look, you're trying to do a thing. Go do it elsewhere, ye goose.

Ov3rcharge

Pharezon wrote: »

Definitely unrelated to politics.

How is this even relevant?

nuka

I would very much like to find out if the people I grew up with were very far away from the bridge before I start pointing fingers at who's fault it is.

Pharezon

Ov3rcharge wrote: »

Pharezon wrote: »

Definitely unrelated to politics.

How is this even relevant?

Because the budget for infrastructure is intensely political?

Druhim

While this certainly is terrible, to put it in perspective for those that are concerned about friends or family in the area, they've only rescued three people so far. While it's certainly possible there might be some fatalities, it's incredibly unlikely that someone you know was actually on the section that collapsed when it actually collapsed. So I get the anxiety, but temper that with the realization that anyone you know is almost certainly fine.

nuka

Pretty much nothing major happens up here at all, so it's a big shock.
I'll find something else to do than bite my fingernails to bits.

Druhim

Oh it's definitely a shock and a big deal. This is probably going to have pretty significant economic impacts all along the west coast due to the major disruption to traffic along I-5 until it's replaced.

Weaver

nuka wrote: »

Pretty much nothing major happens up here at all, so it's a big shock.
I'll find something else to do than bite my fingernails to bits.

Heyyyyyy

Pharezon

I wonder if this will cause other decaying infrastructure to be more closely scrutinized and repaired. Or maybe it'll just vanish into bureaucratic hell after the media spotlight vanishes.

Iloveslimes

Well, local news is saying there were no fatalities. And the collapse was caused in part by a oversize load truck hitting part of the bridge while crossing.

Weaver

Really glad that this was light on damage. Compared to the tornadoes, or things like the floods that we had a few years ago that routed all traffic to the other side of the Cascades, this is nothing.

Also damnit truckers, know your height limit.

Bucketman

That's crazy. Back to being terrified of the Chicago skyway glad there seems to be no deaths and that Fire Truck is ok. Your not allowed to die, your going to play banjo in my band one day

RoyceSraphim

Pharezon wrote: »

I wonder if this will cause other decaying infrastructure to be more closely scrutinized and repaired. Or maybe it'll just vanish into bureaucratic hell after the media spotlight vanishes.

Did Minnesota cause a crusade/jihad against decaying infrastructure after that 20 something Somali woman and her baby girl were crushed by tons of steel and concrete?

gtrmp

Iloveslimes wrote: »

Well, local news is saying there were no fatalities. And the collapse was caused in part by a oversize load truck hitting part of the bridge while crossing.

Yeah, the bridge itself probably wasn't the main factor in its collapse; the bridge's structures were rated as satisfactory or fair as of its last assessment by the Federal Highway Administration in 2010. That said, a bridge in a similar state but with a more up-to-date design might not have collapsed under a collision like that - the bridge is rated as "functionally obsolete", a category that it shares with over 7,000 other bridges nationwide.

Blake T

Iloveslimes wrote: »

Well, local news is saying there were no fatalities. And the collapse was caused in part by a oversize load truck hitting part of the bridge while crossing.

That'll do it alright.

Weaver

I tried to get pictures of the 520 bridge replacement project, but the project hosts their images in flikr and it gave me a bad panda warning.