Truck driver who allegedly hit Skagit bridge is horrified
May 24, 2013, 4:43 PM | Updated: 4:51 pm
The trucker was hauling a load of drilling equipment when his load bumped against the steel framework over an Interstate 5 bridge. He looked in his rearview mirror and watched in horror as the span collapsed into the water behind him. Two vehicles fell into the icy Skagit River.
“He looked in the mirrors and it just dropped out of sight,” Cynthia Scott, the wife of truck driver William Scott, said from the couple’s home near Spruce Grove, Alberta. “I spoke to him seconds after it happened. He was just horrified.”
The truck driver works for Mullen Trucking in Alberta, the Washington State Patrol said. The tractor-trailer was hauling a housing for drilling equipment southbound when the top right front corner of the load struck several of the bridge’s trusses, the patrol said.
Scott, 41, remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators. He voluntarily gave a blood sample for an alcohol test and was not arrested.
Scott, has been driving truck for 20 years and hauling specialized loads for more than 10.
“He gets safety awards, safety bonuses … for doing all these checks, for hiring the right pilot cars and pole cars,” his wife said.
Initially, it wasn’t clear if the bridge just gave way on its own. But Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste blamed it on the too-tall load. The vertical clearance from the roadway to the beam is 14.6 feet.
The truck made it off the bridge, but two other vehicles went into the water about 25 feet below as the structure crumbled.
Mike Allende, a state Department of Transportation spokesman, confirmed the truck had a permit.
“We’re still trying to figure out why it hit the bridge,” Allende said. “It’s ultimately up to the trucking company to figure out whether it can get through.”
State officials approved the trucking company to carry a load as high as 15 feet, 9 inches, according to the permit released by the state. However, the southbound vertical clearance on the Skagit River bridge is as little as 14 feet, 9 inches, state records show. The bridge’s curved overhead girders are higher in the center of the bridge but sweep lower toward a driver’s right side.
The bridge has a maximum clearance of about 17 feet, but there is no signage to indicate how to safely navigate the bridge with a tall load.
The permit specifically describes the route the truck would take, though it includes a qualification that the state “Does Not Guarantee Height Clearance.”
It’s not rare for trucks to strike bridges in Washington state – it’s just that such accidents don’t usually cause the structures to collapse.
The state DOT said there were 21 bridge-strikes involving trucks last year, 24 in 2011 and 14 in 2010.
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