The in basket: Dave Dahlke says he wasn’t personally
affected by the Memorial Day weekend blockage by the state
Department of Transportation of the southbound lanes of Highway 16
to pull a semi out of a ravine but he read the letter to the editor
from Frank Kolb in the Kitsap Sun excoriating the agency for its
timing.
Frank, who WAS personally affected, wrote, in part, “It had been
there for days! The removal could have been done at night, but the
morning schedule meant that at 11 a.m. traffic was stopped before
Mullenix Road heading south. Thousands of motorists (myself
included) had their holiday weekend ruined due to this all-day
fiasco. I tried to go down Bethel-Burley Road, but that was no
better, so myself and countless others just turned around and went
home.
“I called 511, no info there,” Frank said, “no notice was posted
anywhere that would have warned us. I thought it must have been a
fatal accident, no one at DOT would lack the common sense to plan
something like this. But I was wrong…”
Dave asked if I could “find out who and why this travesty was
done at the time it was and with no notification to the public that
it was going to happen.”
The out basket: Doug Adamson of the Olympic Region public
affairs office for WSDOT, replied, “I’d like to first apologize for
the inconvenience this semi-truck recovery caused the traveling
public.
“Our plan was to choose a low-volume time to remove the
semi-truck. We, of course, knew that the Sunday in question was in
the middle of the Memorial Day weekend. That fact would normally
work in our favor, as the middle day of a three-day weekend
normally sees lighter traffic volumes (especially in those
early-morning hours). We expected the recovery to take place
between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., and to have all lanes back open
long before traffic volumes built.
“Unfortunately things did not go exactly as planned. The
semi had gone down a steep embankment while carrying tens of
thousands of pounds of cargo. We chose to do the recovery
during daylight hours because, while our goal is to keep traffic
moving, safety is our number one priority. During recovery,
unfortunately the heavy load inside the trailer shifted and
resulted in a much longer recovery time than planned to retrieve
the trailer and semi-truck.
“Information about the closure did go out to the public, via
WSDOT’s GovDelivery email and text system. It was also posted on
our travel alerts web page, and shared on the WSDOT Twitter
account.
“We certainly do thank drivers for their patience,” Doug
concluded. “We understand how delays are frustrating.”