Sandra White: Hood Canal Bridge Progress

It is said that over 22,000 cars per day cross over to the North Olympic Peninsula on the Hood Canal Bridge which connects us to the mainland of Puget Sound and Kitsap Peninsula.  No amount of planning could prepare us for the inconvenience and loss of business the closing has cost.

Our little city of Port Townsend has done a lot of publicity to remind our summer visitors that we are still here and accessible, but I hear from local business owners this is not working too well.  There is a one lane highway that will take you to the mainland, but it seems to be a 4-5 hour trip.  There is the possibility of taking a walk on ferry from point a to point b and then catching a bus or two into Seattle.  It now leaves at 4:30 am.  The other possibility is 2 ferries with about 2 hours of driving and waiting in between, but these have been booked to capacity daily. 

In 1979,  before my time here in Port Townsend, the west end of the 1961 era bridge sank due to an unusually heavy windstorm.  The bridge did not reopen until 1982.  Real estate was a real bargain here in those years.  So if you consider the alternative, this is a small price to pay for the safety and long range benefit of a newly refurbished bridge.  It will be wider and much more reliable.

There was decaying concrete and rusted steel on the east half, which is now being replaced with a new section.   This 60 million pound, 943 foot  structure is being tugged over from Port Gamble and a high tide is needed to ease it over. 

The sections have to be lined up with not much room for height difference ( less than the height of two pennies stacked up) so the water has to be as still as possible for this endeavor.  They will look for a "slack tide", the period between the outgoing and incoming tide, which this week should be before dawn.

This is the 770 ft.  old section of bridge on its way to Canada, shown here passing by Point Hudson in Port Townsend.    The pontoons will be used in a marina breakwater there. Some other parts of the old bridge are going to salvage. 

This whole project can be viewed from Shine Tidelands State Park shoreline near the west end.  So far weather is co-operating and hopefully the project will be finished on time (June 15th) or possibly early, due to hefty bonus money for earlier deadlines. 

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