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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Monday, May 12, 2008 Everett bridges getting closer scrutiny The city of Everett steps up its inspection efforts, hiring a Bellevue engineering company. David Chircop Herald Writer EVERETT -- For years, Everett's bridges were inspected by a lone building official, not a licensed bridge engineer. With an onslaught of more stringent federal highway safety rules, and in light of last summer's tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Everett is changing how it examines its own spans. The Everett City Council last week approved a $183,000 contract with a Bellevue engineering company to inspect the city's bridges and tunnels, and to make sure that city records have been properly reported. The city's decision to scuttle in-house bridge inspections underscores a renewed interest in bridge safety. It comes more than three years after the Federal Highway Administration's revised national bridge inspection standards, which require states to impose more rigorous training and qualification requirements for bridge inspectors. "We could get someone trained to meet the minimum requirements, but I'm not convinced that's sufficient," Everett city engineer Ryan Sass said. The same building inspector examined bridges as a routine part of his job, Sass said. If that person was concerned, the city always had the option of calling state bridge inspectors for help. Everett doesn't have enough bridges to justify keeping a bridge inspection engineer on staff and trained, Sass said. Hiring specialists to do the work makes more sense, he said. Since 2005, Everett began discussing turning inspections over to Snohomish County's bridge inspection group, which is better trained and equipped, Sass said. County inspectors annually examine more than 185 county bridges and provide results to state and federal agencies. The county also inspects bridges for Monroe, Mukilteo, Lake Stevens, Gold Bar, Woodway, Bothell and Stanwood. A temporary gap in staffing caused by a retirement required the county to decline Everett's request to take over inspections, but it might assume the job in the future, Sass said. The city is required to inspect its bridges every two years, although some inspections are overdue because of the transition in how bridges are inspected, Sass said. The most recent inspections show Everett's bridges are safe, he said. More than one in four of Washington's 7,600 bridges are considered "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete" by the Federal Highway Administration. Among the most critical spans on the state's replacement list are the heavily traveled Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Highway 520 floating bridge. In Snohomish County, 18* state and county bridges are considered structurally deficient, including the two-mile-long U.S. 2 trestle across Ebey Slough and the one-lane timber bridge on Swanson Road east of Arlington. None are in Everett. New bridges have sufficiency ratings of 100. A score of 80 warrants major rehabilitation; a score of 50 warrants total replacement. The U.S. 2 span has a rating of 44.2, and the Swanson Road Bridge has a rating of less than 10. It will be replaced in a few weeks with a 300-foot-long steel bridge. That doesn't mean they are dangerous, said Darrell Ash, a Snohomish County bridge engineer. They are just not up to current standards, he said. "The bottom line is an unsafe bridge is closed," said Grant Griffin, a bridge engineer with the state Department of Transportation. A bridge has never collapsed in Snohomish or Island counties, according to state records, although at least 70 bridges across Washington since 1923 have failed -- most of them washed out in floods. The most dramatic was the collapse of the original Tacoma Narrows bridge, the world's third-longest suspension bridge when it opened on July 1, 1940. It fell a few weeks later. Ash, who has inspected bridges in the county for 21 years, said the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis last August has focused national attention on bridge safety. "It's been gradually tightening over the years," he said. "And, with this collapse in Minneapolis, it's gotten more attention and scrutiny." That tragedy killed 13 people and injured 145. He said Snohomish County has two steel-truss bridges like the one that fell in Minnea­polis -- one in Granite Falls* and one in Everett on Mukilteo Boule­vard. The federal government first got involved with bridge maintenance standards after another catastrophic bridge disaster on Dec. 15, 1967. That collapse between Ohio and West Virginia killed 46 people. Griffin, with the DOT, said Washington traces its history of bridge inspections back to the 1923 collapse of the Allen Street Bridge in Kelso. Now the state helps cities and counties with particularly complex inspections, including underwater tests. He said Everett's contract with TranTech Engineering of Bellevue should ensure Everett's inspections and records are current and accurate. The contract includes inspections of pedestrian bridges, a number of culverts and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tunnel below downtown Everett. "This contract will bring everything up to standard and make sure that they're not going to have a problem," Griffin said. Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com. *Correction, May 17, 2008: This article originally incorrectly stated the number of structurally deficient bridges in Snohomish County and gave the wrong town for a steel-truss bridge.

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