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PENINSULA DAILY NEWS May 26, 2013 | $1.50
Port Townsend-Jefferson County’s Daily Newspaper
U.S. 101 work zone speed will drop 45 mph limit starts Tuesday BY PAUL GOTTLIEB PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
AGNEW — Prepare to drive 45 mph beginning Tuesday on a 3.5-mile, construction-busy stretch of U.S. Highway 101
between Port Angeles and Sequim. That’s where a 52-year-old man died last week in a threevehicle collision along the twolane stretch that remained 55 mph after work crews began a widening project. The state Department of Transportation will lower the speed limit Tuesday just as soon as workers install new speed-
limit signs along the highway between Shore and Kitchen-Dick roads. It’s where workers with heavy equipment are widening it from to two to four lanes — and where drivers may be getting distracted by all the construction fuss,� Project Engineer Jerry Moore said Friday. “I’m trying to rush-order the signs in.�
Since the collision, residents have expressed concerns about the 55-mph speed limit, he said. “We are responding to [the concern that] maybe there is an issue of too many people not paying attention to the roadway,� Moore added. “We are responding to people’s questions, asking is there something to do.�
Bryan Crawford of Port Angeles was traveling eastbound at 8:30 a.m. Monday when he was struck by one of two vehicles that had collided in the westbound lane after one of those vehicles had struck the other from the rear, the State Patrol said. Crawford died at the scene, the State Patrol said. TURN
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A bridge near you could tumble 9 steel spans like I-5 one that fell ring N. Peninsula BY PAUL GOTTLIEB PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
LONNIE ARCHIBALD/FOR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
A Clallam County road crew inspects the steel-truss bridge that carries Quillayute Road over the Sol Duc River after a truck clipped an overhead component in 2012. The bridge regularly suffers truck hits.
Nine truss bridges similar to the Interstate 5 span that collapsed Thursday evening over the Skagit River traverse rivers in Clallam and Jefferson counties. And they present a similar danger of failure, local officials said. Here’s the North Olympic Peninsula inventory of “through-truss� bridges — most on U.S. Highway 101 — in which trusses are above, not below, bridge decks, as outlined Friday by the state Department of Transportation and officials of both counties: ■One is a collision-prone Clallam County bridge on Quillayute Road that crosses the Sol Duc River 4 miles west of Forks. ■Six are state bridges that carry U.S. 101 over the Sol Duc and Calawah rivers in Clallam County’s West End. ■Two are U.S. 101 bridges that stretch across the Big Quilcene and Hoh rivers in East and West Jefferson County. Also led by steel trusses — albeit modern ones — is the 1.5-mile Hood Canal
ALSO . . . ■Peninsula bridges figure in state’s most memorable collapses/A7
Bridge, the third-longest floating bridge in the world that is split by Jefferson and Kitsap counties. Installed in 2010, the entrance trusses to the floating span are considered modern engineering and are not accident-prone. Like the I-5 bridge in Skagit, the old North Olympic Peninsula steel-truss bridges are considered functionally obsolete because they do not meet present-day volume and vertical-clearance standards, Transportation Regional Operations Engineer Chris Keegan said.
Bridges inspected That doesn’t mean they are unsafe, county and state officials said. They are inspected by Transportation once every two years. “Our bridges are in pretty good shape,� said Bob Martin, Clallam’s public works administrative director and the county’s former head of emergency services. “Some need to be retrofitted to be seismically sound,� he added. But the spans are not immune from the same consequences that befell the Skagit River bridge near Mount Vernon, county officials said. TURN
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I-5 collapse seen as national warning BY DONNA G. BLANKINSHIP THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOUNT VERNON — The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday that the Skagit River bridge collapse on Interstate 5 is a wake-up call for the nation. “This is a really significant event and we need to learn from it, not just in Washington but around the country,� Debbie Hersman said after taking a boat ride on the Skagit River below
the dramatic scene where a truck bumped against the steel framework, collapsing the bridge. The Thursday evening crash sent two vehicles and three people 50 feet into the chilly water. All suffered only minor injuries. Investigators need to find out what happened near Mount Vernon and if it could be repeated at similar bridges around the country, Hersman said.
THE SEATTLE TIMES
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Detoured traffic meanders across the Burlington Boulevard bridge over the Skagit TURN TO SKAGIT/A7 River, top, following the collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge.
Solemn rites set for Memorial Day
Where’s the business section? Where’s Peninsula Profile?
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
are planned at several cemeteries the morning of Memorial Day and will culmiMemorial Day observances to honor those who died while serving their country nate in a noon program at American in the military are scheduled throughout Legion Marvin Shields Memorial Post 26. Ceremonies will begin at 10 a.m. at the North Olympic Peninsula on Monday. Fort Worden Military Cemetery and then move to St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery at Port Townsend 11 a.m. and Laurel Grove Cemetery at Services and concert 11:30 a.m.
Hartman
PORT TOWNSEND —
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Our popular Business, Politics and Environment section — usually Section D of Sunday’s PDN — has moved. From today onward, it will be part of Section A every Sunday. You’ll find these special stories on Pages A12-A17 today. IN ADDITION . . . Peninsula Profile, usually part of Section C, is a four-page stand-alone section in today’s PDN.
________ Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts schedule/C1
RITES/A5
INSIDE TODAY’S PENINSULA DAILY NEWS 97th year, 125th issue — 7 sections, 74 pages
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