Temporary bridges planned for fallen I-5

Associated Press

SEATTLE

Federal investigators used 3-D laser scans Sunday to study what remained of a collapsed Washington state bridge as Gov. Jay Inslee announced temporary spans will be installed across the Skagit River within weeks — if plans go well.

Sunday’s announcement comes a day after the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board called last week’s Interstate 5 bridge collapse a wake-up call to the state of safety of the nation’s infrastructure and the Saturday destruction of a highway overpass in Missouri that was struck by a cargo train.

The Washington state collapse, caused by a semi-truck carrying an oversize load striking the bridge, fractured one of the major trade and travel corridors on the West Coast. The interstate connects Washington state with Canada, which is about an hour north of Mount Vernon, where the bridge buckled.

After the collapse, semi-trucks, travel buses and cars clogged local bridges as traffic was diverted through the small cities around the bridge. But overall, traffic was flowing as well as expected during the holiday weekend.

“We’re going to get this project done as fast as humanly possible,” Inslee, a Democrat, said Sunday. “There are no more important issue right now to the economy of the state of Washington than getting this bridge up and running.”