Crossover wreck closes northbound I-5 at Marysville; 1 dead, 1 badly injured in fiery accident

Published 9:00 pm Monday, February 12, 2007

MARYSVILLE — One person was killed and another seriously injured in what police believe was another crossover accident at milepost 200 on I-5 in Marysville Tuesday.

Troopers have opened the right northbound lane and traffic is moving steadily past the accident site. Accident investigators are expected to be at the scene for at least a few hours.

A southbound Jeep apparently crossed the cable barrier median about a quarter mile south of 88th Street NE, colliding with a northbound charter bus. The Jeep driver was reported dead, and the bus driver was seriously injured, according to Trooper Kirk Rudeen, Washington State Patrol spokesman. The Jeep burst into flames after the collision. It is unknown right now whether the driver was a man or a woman.

Christina Harper/ For The Herald Police investigate the scene at a fatal accident at milepost 200 on I-5 in Marysville Tuesday afternoon.

This is the first fatal accident in more than a year along a 10-mile stretch of I-5 where sections of cable barrier had not been installed according to specifications. The state has since reinstalled the barrier, and the state is adding a second row of cable barrier in order to prevent crossover accidents. A cable barrier is designed to absorb a crash’s impact, unlike solid median barriers.

The new cable barrier work cost about $2.4 million and included the length at milepost 200, where this afternoon’s fatal accident happened.

The cable barrier in the I-5 median where the accident occurred came under scrutiny after several accidents where vehicles crossed the median into oncoming traffic, which caused the deaths of seven people between 2000 and 2004.

The state recently agreed to pay the Holschen family of Bothell $2 million after a crossover accident killed 18-year-old Megan Holschen and injured several other members of the family.

The state believes that cable barriers are an effective way to prevent crossover accidents. It has invested heavily in the technology.

“Weve seen great success with cable barriers around the state,” transportation department spokesman Travis Phelps said Tuesday afternoon. “Theyve been known to stop all sorts of vehicles form small cars all the way up to semi-trucks.”

Statewide the DOT has invested $8.8 million in cable barriers between the fall of 2005 and the late summer of 2006, including spending $2.4 million on a second strand of cables in Marysville. Eighty miles of cables were installed in eight counties on nine different highways.

Phelps declined to comment on the accident.

“Its a little too soon to say what happened here,” he said. “The state patrol is currently conducting an accident investigation. We’ll know more as they progress.”

An investigation by The Herald in July 2005 showed that the cable barriers in the freeway median were not working as designed along about a third of the 10-mile stretch north of Marysville.

An analysis of accident data by the newspaper showed that barriers failed to stop cars crossing the median 20 percent of the time along a three-mile stretch. In January 2006, the state released findings of a similar analysis.

The state found that the barriers worked 95 percent of the time at other locations in the state, but concluded that the cables in areas near Marysville allowed small vehicles to slip under because the barrier had been installed at the bottom of the ditch.