Trams Must Be Inspected -- At Medina Site, Clamp On Cable Broke Loose

Most of the private trams ferrying local residents down steep banks to waterfront homes have not been inspected by the state, as an obscure law has required since 1963.

"There are 50 or 60 in the state that are registered at this time and comply to code," said William O'Hara, chief elevator inspector for the state Department of Labor and Industries and the inspector investigating Saturday's Medina tram accident that paralyzed one woman and injured several other people.

The owners of the tram were cited yesterday for 15 technical and safety violations, said Brian Dirks, a spokesman for labor and industries.

Among the most important was the lack of a speed governor - a device widely available only for the past year, said O'Hara. It acts like an emergency brake and engages when the car overspeeds.

But the lack of a governor wasn't the cause of the accident. O'Hara said the accident was caused because an improper clamp - one that damages cables and isn't strong enough - failed to hold the cable connected to the tram car. The cable unraveled and the car fell more than 100 feet and smashed into the home's foundation.

"The U-clamps holding the end of the cable did not hold, and the cable slid through the clamp and became disconnected," O'Hara said, adding that a safety backup for broken cables failed to engage.

"What caused the cable to come unhooked I can't say yet," he said. "I can't say whether they were loose or the car hung up and they went slack and then broke loose. I haven't talked to anybody who was on the ride yet."

The cables were brand-new, O'Hara said, installed five weeks ago by A&M Elevator Inc., the private company that had done maintenance on the 30-year-old tram for years.

Inspectors estimate there may be as many as 300 private trams on Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.

Most of them, like the one that crashed Saturday, were not inspected by the state when they were installed, as the law has required since 1963, let alone inspected annually, as a 6-month-old interpretation of the law now demands.

"The owners should be aware that the law is there," said Dirks. "A lot of times, they don't know it's in place. A lot of these trams just slip through the cracks. A lot of them are homemade or made from kits."

"We haven't been able to go out and do an adequate job of policing," Dirks said. "It would require someone going out in a boat."

Homeowners aren't the only ones who have been unaware of the law. Of the two companies in the state that build and install trams, O'Hara said, one company "didn't know they had to be inspected by the state until I called and told them. Some engineers don't even get back to me."

Since Saturday's accident, however, the department will take a different approach. Instead of waiting to be contacted for an inspection by people who may not know they need one, inspectors will be mailing letters and going door to door to tram owners' homes, O'Hara said.

"We're going house to house on these bank properties," O'Hara said. "I think with this accident it's going to open the door for us."

Not knowing wasn't the only reason the state's eight inspectors - who are responsible for 7,500 commercial elevators throughout the state, as well as for private trams - have put their yellow state inspection seal on so few trams.

Until a new interpretation of the law by the state attorney general came out six months ago, inspectors were loath to test tram owners' private-property rights.

"There are `No Trespassing' signs all over," O'Hara said, and homeowners have refused access to inspectors.

"I think sometimes they're afraid we're going to tell them it requires thousands of dollars in repairs," Dirks said. The inspection fee is $70.

The fine for not complying with the law is $150, O'Hara said. If people refuse him access now, he said he intends to fine them. Asked how eight inspectors would be able to handle the increased workload, O'Hara said, "We're going to move fast."

Jim and Cynthia Roush, who own the home and tram at 2441 Evergreen Point Road, may also be fined the $150, he said.

Joyce Winsor, 63, one of the passengers in the tram, was listed in serious condition yesterday in an intensive-care unit at Harborview Medical Center. She has had tests at the University of Washington Medical Center to determine the extent of her paralysis.

Cassandra Collier, 42, was listed in serious condition at Overlake Medical Center, where her daughter, Cary Collier, 12, was in satisfactory condition.

Winsor's husband, Robert Winsor, 63, and Collier's 8-year-old daughter were treated for minor injuries at Overlake and released late Saturday, according to hospital records.