Old I-90 Bridge Is Long Gone, But Controversy Isn't -- State And Contractor Playing Suit-Countersuit

It had rained heavily for four days. Rivers were spilling over, roads were washing out, basements were flooding.

And on the fifth day, a bridge sank.

Not just any bridge. Washington's first floating bridge, a 50-year part of Seattle's history.

And a year later, the recriminations and the search for blame continue - and the state and contractor have filed lawsuits against each other.

It was Sunday morning, Nov. 25, 1990, and residents of the region awoke to word that the Mercer Island Floating Bridge had broken apart. The catastrophe played itself out as people watched on television.

More gathered on the shoreline in Seattle and on Mercer Island to watch. Winds drove Lake Washington into a white-capped sea, and giant concrete pontoons that had bridged the lake since 1940 creaked, sagged, twisted and finally sank.

Construction machinery on the bridge looked like toys, as trucks, cranes and air compressors slowly slid into the water.

By that night, it was over, and the search for blame began.

There were no injuries in the bridge sinking; indeed, the span wasn't even carrying traffic. It was closed for refurbishing, and it was that oddity - that it was unused and being worked on - that may have led to its demise.

The old Interstate 90 bridge had carried traffic between Seattle and Mercer Island for 50 years, but in June of 1990 it was superseded.

That's when a new bridge opened, built as part of an I-90 project between Seattle and Bellevue.

As part of that work, the old I-90 bridge was to be rebuilt and widened, eventually reopening to carry eastbound traffic out of Seattle.

In August of that year, reconstruction work had started on the old bridge, with an Indiana company, Traylor Bros. Construction, getting the bid.

Much of the rebuilding involved removing old sidewalks and railings so the old roadway could be widened, and Traylor and the state Department of Transportation agreed on a plan to use hydrodemolition, or water blasting, to do that work.

Such water blasting offers significant advantages over trying to remove old concrete with jackhammers. It causes less vibration, is more precise and is often faster.

So throughout the fall, motorists passing on the new I-90 bridge saw a ghostly spectacle as the hydrodemolishing equipment worked almost nightly on the old bridge under the glare of floodlights, sending a watery mist into the air.

Unknown before the bridge sank, however, were ongoing problems with the hydrodemolition. Traylor had bid on the job with the understanding that lake water could be used in the blasting process.

But as the job progressed, that and usual hydrodemolition procedures were changed and abandoned. To meet ecological requirements, lake water couldn't be used, so waterlines had to be run from shore. And used water couldn't be disposed of in the lake. Instead, it had to be stored in the pontoons and then trucked off the bridge.

Other changes also were being made, including the cutting of more than 100 new openings into the sides of bridge pontoons to provide better access to them in the future.

When the November storm hit, a combination of factors led to the bridge sinking, with water pouring into the pontoons through the unsealed side openings as the structure settled in the water.

Gov. Booth Gardner convened a panel to investigate the sinking, and on May 2 it issued its findings and recommendations, concluding a number of things caused the sinking.

Among the causes were a failure to use marine-construction techniques in the bridge rebuilding; a failure to take extra precautions because the bridge was a floating structure; improper procedures in the permitting and bid process, with such requirements not being resolved until after the contract had been let; and a breakdown in coordination among various state agencies.

UNANSWERED QUESTION

In the end, the panel, like nearly everyone else, concluded the bridge sank because it had too much water inside.

"The question is what was the major source of that water?" asked the panel. It was unable to answer the question, instead suggesting a number of theories, including cracks that broke open.

Besides the panel inquiry, lawsuits were filed, with the state suing Traylor Bros., seeking unspecified damages and saying the bridge was the contractor's responsibility. Traylor, in turn, filed a counterclaim, also seeking unspecified damages and saying faulty state procedures let the sinking happen.

No trial date has been set, and both parties are in what's called the discovery process, trying to learn what the other side knew and did. The case isn't likely to go to trial until about 1993, says Ted Torve, the DOT's chief legal counsel. Duane Berentson, DOT secretary, says he hopes an out-of-court settlement can be reached.

Since the sinking, damaged anchor cables securing the remaining I-90 bridge have been replaced. All the pontoons from the old bridge have been sold, several to the Makah Tribe on the Olympic Peninsula and a couple to the city of Craig in Southeast Alaska.

The last two pontoons went to Sunmar Shipping Inc., a Seattle seafood-shipping company. While some of the pontoons sold for as little as $1,000, Sunmar paid $152,000 for its two.

The next step in replacing the old bridge is likely to take place in the next few weeks as bids are opened on a contract to start reconstruction.

Actual construction is likely to start by Feb. 10, with completion aimed for fall of 1993 - although the work could go on another year, depending on how the contract is structured.

Total cost of replacing the bridge is expected to be about $118 million, with 95 percent of the money coming from a federal emergency-relief fund.

REPLACEMENT BRIDGE

The replacement bridge won't look like the old one; it will resemble the new I-90 bridge. But the replacement structure will be smaller than the new bridge, only three lanes wide instead of five.

Those three lanes will carry traffic eastbound. Two center lanes on the existing I-90 bridge will carry mass-transit vehicles, and three westbound lanes on that bridge will carry general traffic.

The new pontoons are likely to be built at one of several sites on or near Puget Sound, including Tacoma, Anacortes or Mats Mats Bay near Port Townsend.

The replacement bridge will incorporate all the recommendations made to prevent further disasters, including having a naval architect review the design and construction.

DESIGN SAFEGUARDS

An alarm system to monitor water levels is part of the design, and factors that may have led to the sinking, such as low walls between pontoon cells that let water flow from one cell to another, as in an ice-cube tray, have been eliminated.

Few of the people who became familiar in news reports a year ago have changed jobs.

Berentson still is state secretary of transportation. Ron Anderson still is the DOT's District 1 administrator, overseeing operations in an area stretching from the Pierce County boundary to the Canadian border. John Stephenson still is his assistant. Bill Dues still is I-90 project manager, and Robert (Skip) Sheppard is I-90 project engineer. Doug Lindsley, the bridge inspector who was the last state employee to be on the bridge on the day before it sank, still is a state bridge inspector. And Grant Ralston, division manager for Traylor Bros., still has that job.

When the bridge is reopened in 1993 or 1994, the total cost of the I-90 project since 1986 will come to about $1.5 billion.

That's 6.2 percent more than the $1.4 billion that had been estimated five years ago. Considering the sinking, it could have been worse.