Second report of falling debris from Ship Canal Bridge

The Washington State Department of Transportation is conducting its biennial inspection, coincidentally, after a second report of falling debris from the Ship Canal Bridge.

A rower launched his boat near the 182-foot-high bridge Monday morning and heard a loud bang once under the bridge.

“It was the equivalent of somebody hitting this metal piece on my boat with a big hammer,” Tom Kreyche told KING 5. “It couldn’t have been two feet from my head, maybe closer.”

Kreyche was on a sculling boat, a long, narrow single-person row boat, designed to swiftly coast through the water. There’s not much surface area for debris to strike. A dent on an oar mount is the only sign left from whatever it was that struck the boat.

“There’s a certain amount of risk in anything you do, but I don’t expect to get hit by objects falling from the sky while I’m rowing,” Kreyche told KING 5. “Better in the boat than in my skull … I’ll pray that I don’t get hit again.”

The bridge is being inspected Monday through Thursday. WSDOT performs a full inspection of the bridge every two years. The Ship Canal Bridge was initially built in 1962.

WSDOT told KING 5 that it inspects the bridge anytime there are claims of falling debris and that it does not believe that the debris, this time, came off of the bridge.

A similar statement was issued in mid-July when another person experienced falling debris. Kreyche’s report is the second of its kind within a month.

Andy Rebele returned to find a concrete mass imbedded in a smashed window of his Tesla Model S after completing a rowing session in Lake Union.

Rebele was told that the bulk of concrete that fell and smashed the window was not likely from the bridge itself. The damage to the car is estimated at $1,000.

“[WSDOT] went and inspected [the bridge] and said the chunk didn’t come from the bridge,” Rebele said.

WSDOT told Rebele that the concrete must have somehow been kicked off the bridge by a passing vehicle. The statement seemed odd since no one from WSDOT ever looked at the concrete to determine that, according to Rebele.

“I have the chunks of concrete in my home and [WSDOT] hasn’t seen them,” Rebele said.

Standing beneath the bridge Monday afternoon, inspector Steve Nilson said the state has found no evidence debris that reportedly fell on several cars and a boat came from its structure.

Nilson said WSDOT has investigated three separate claims in the last month but couldn’t substantiate any of them – though he won’t rule out loose debris falling from above.