SKYKOMISH – A head-on collision on U.S. 2 killed two people and injured four others on Monday.
The accident happened just as local and state officials sat down to discuss a plan to make the deadly highway safer.
“This may sound strange. But this didn’t come as a surprise because this is a two-lane highway,” Sultan Police Chief Fred Walser said after learning about the accident.
The crash occurred at 12:21 p.m. just east of Skykomish, closing the highway, the Washington State Patrol reported.
A Subaru, which was westbound on the highway, crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a Jeep Wrangler, said Keith Leary, a state patrol trooper.
Marva D. Peterson, 56, Snohomish, the driver of the Subaru, and Roger J. Thomas, 40, Marysville, the driver of the Jeep, died at the scene, according to a state patrol memo.
Four passengers in the Jeep were also injured.
They were identified as Soi Jung, 30, James Truong, 11, Evan Loam, 11, and Terry Jung, 10, all of Kirkland. The extent of their injuries was not released Monday evening.
One of the children was seriously injured and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The other three passengers were taken to local hospitals, Leary said.
Debris from the crash hit a Mazda minivan, but nobody in the car was injured, he said.
The state patrol reopened U.S. 2 around 4:30 p.m. Officials are still investing the cause of the accident.
Counting the two fatalities on Monday, 43 people have died in accidents on the highway between Everett and Skykomish since 1999, according to the state Department of Transportation. Of those fatalities, 14 occurred in head-on, cross-over collisions.
Walser leads the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition, a grassroots group of local residents, officials and businesses. He and other local and state officials met on Monday in Sultan to discuss a $1.3 million study to improve U.S. 2, Walser said.
The study, due by spring 2007, aims to identify short- and long-term projects to make the highway safer and smoother.
“We hope to come out of this with very specific improvements,” he said.
U.S. 2 received no money from gas tax increases in 2003 and 2005, angering people in the Skykomish Valley.
About 200 people gathered at a community meeting in Sultan in April and urged officials to take immediate actions to improve the highway.
In June, Snohomish County decided to allocate $1.5 million to improve U.S. 2, if the same amount of money is raised as a matching fund.
Local officials are hoping federal lawmakers will lock in $500,000 for the highway this year. The U.S. House passed a bill that includes the money, and now the legislation is headed to the Senate.
U.S. 2 causes headaches not only for the locals, but also for outsiders, Walser said. For example, many commercial vehicles often go bumper to bumper on the congested highway.
The highway needs to be fixed as soon as possible, Walser said.
“How many more people have to die before we make improvements on this highway?” he said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
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