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A state legislator has renewed his concerns over “vulnerable” bridges in Washington following the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in late March.
On Thursday, state Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, called for legislation to study bridge vulnerabilities throughout the state, which would focus on pier protections. Wilson said he plans to finalize his proposal later this year, and introduce it in December.
The call to action comes after a wayward container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26.
A portion of the structure collapsed after the collision, which killed six workers stationed on the bridge.
In a statement, Wilson said collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge should raise concerns over bridge crossings throughout the state, including the 95-year-old Lewis and Clark Bridge that crosses the Columbia River, as similar vessels regularly travel under bridges in Astoria and Longview as they travel to the ports in Astoria, Longview, Vancouver and Portland.
“The Lewis and Clark Bridge is especially vulnerable, but there are other bridge piers across the state that need protection,” Wilson said in a statement Thursday. “We need to get ahead of this problem and a study is a good place to start. I’m not suggesting that a wooden piling is enough to protect a bridge, but one thing we might do is to pile rocks and earth around bridge piers to stop ships before they can do damage. What a study can tell us is whether it makes more sense just to build a new bridge.”
Kelly Hanahan, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT), said Friday that the bridge has a “fair” rating and has no structural concerns. According to Hanahan, there has never been a documented strike between the bridge and a vessel.
“However, we know the size of vessels continues to increase,” Hanahan said. “As it has been in the past, WSDOT is open and committed to continue working with other state, federal, and local maritime and safety organizations to discuss ongoing needs of the bridge.”
According to WSDOT, the bridge serves more than 20,000 cars a day, which mostly consist of commercial freight vehicles.Wilson called the capacity of the bridge “inadequate” for current traffic.
Elected to the state Senate in 2020, Wilson also serves as a commissioner at the Port of Longview.
Wilson pointed to a collision between a container ship and the West Spokane Street Bridge in Seattle in 1978, which resulted from crew negligence. No one was killed or injured in the incident. The event partially led to the construction of a new West Seattle Bridge six years later that could accommodate additional ship traffic into the port of Seattle.
Hanahan noted that retrofitting existing bridges could cost “up to tens of millions of dollars at each location” and that the department must balance rare occurrences with regular maintenance and upkeep.
“WSDOT and ODOT share costs for the state-owned Columbia River bridge crossings, so investments would be a bi-state decision,” Hanahan said. “As it relates to the recent Key Bridge strike, WSDOT is interested to learn more information from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation as it relates to the effectiveness of protection systems for mitigating risk of catastrophic damage or collapse.”
In his statement, Wilson noted WSDOT installed timber fenders at the two midriver bridge piers in 1950 and 1951, which were removed from the structure due to deterioration in 1992 and 1993. WSDOT replaced the fenders with rubber bumpers around bridge supports and a radar beacon system.
“One thing many people may have forgotten is that we used to have fenders around the piers at the Lewis and Clark Bridge,” Wilson said Thursday. “These were removed in the 1990s and never replaced. With the amount of commercial shipping between Astoria and Portland, we’ve been lucky there’s never been an accident. So let’s knock on wood and start asking what we need to do to ensure this can’t happen here.”
The rubber bumpers, Hanahan said, are a “minor element” on bridges that guard against collisions between small vessels and the piers.
“While a robust pier protection system would improve any bridge’s resistance to collisions with marine vessels, the Baltimore bridge collapse was a result of a catastrophic strike by a large cargo vessel,” Hanahan said. “It is unclear at this time if even a robust pier protection system would have been successful in protecting this bridge from such a significant collision.”
The statement Thursday is not the first time Wilson has voiced concerns over the bridge.
In April 2023, Wilson called for a legislative hearing to discuss the potential replacement of the bridge after an emergency 12-hour closure to repair a fractured floor beam.
In a statement at the time, Wilson said he was concerned about the long-term viability of the bridge, and that the “crossing at Longview is so important to our community that we need to watch it like a hawk.”
“I realize all attention right now is going to the replacement of the Interstate Bridge at Vancouver,” Wilson said in an April 13, 2023 statement. “The oldest portion of the Vancouver bridge opened 106 years ago. The bridge at Longview isn’t that much newer — it is 94 years old. If we are not thinking about bridge replacement, we need to consider what we need to do over the long term to keep it open.”
The Lewis and Clark Bridge was closed for four days last July to replace steel expansion joints that allow the structure to expand and contract with temperature variations, and Hanahan said “only routine maintenance is coming in the future.”
“WSDOT has a variety of bridges across the state, all of which are regularly inspected, and results reported to the Federal Highway Administration. Anytime we have a bridge strike — more commonly by an overheight vehicle — our specialized bridge crews go out and inspect the bridge and we take whatever steps are needed to ensure public safety,” Hanahan said.
According to WSDOT, the bridge measures 1.56 miles long and was designed and constructed by the engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
WSDOT has partnered with the Oregon Department of Transportation “to evaluate options for safety improvements, large and small, by working to validate which ones would actually mitigate risks from various kinds of cargo ship strikes.”
