“And at the time [when I got the call], the news director [whose name was Neal Clement] was doing the news from his studio, and I was answering the phone.”. And until they got that going the only way you could really get to Seattle was head on down the Hood Canal all the way down to Olympia through Shelton and back up I-5 or you could go to Bremerton and take a ferry to Seattle.”. Myers and Tyner escaped from the bridge in Tyner’s truck, arriving on the west bank of Hood Canal shortly before the bridge sank. Coincidentally, the anniversary happens to be Friday the 13th. The yacht “Silver Lining” was carrying eight people when it reportedly hit a submerged object and began to sink Tuesday, said Petty Officer 1st Class Levi Read of the Coast Guard. It was the combination of factors. All rights reserved. The Coast Guard says the 65-foot boat started taking on water Tuesday about 1.3 miles southwest of the Hood Canal Bridge. sinking of the Hood Canal Bridge on February 13, 1979 created the need for an additional 20 deck officer jobs within the System. Details about 1979 Sinking of The HOOD CANAL BRIDGE Kitsap Jefferson Counties WASHINGTON. The State was scheduled to retire the 40-year-old vessel, but the sinking of the Hood Canal Bridge and delays in the delivery of the new Issaquah Class ferries kept the Vashon in service. The bridge was buffeted by high winds beginning late that Monday evening. Jim MacDonald was 31-year old radio announcer back in February 1979 when he took a phone call from a listener with news that changed the lives of thousands of people on the Olympic Peninsula for years. (Zach Jablonski/Peninsula Daily News), Coast Guard: No one hurt, no diesel spilled. “So I get a phone call,” MacDonald said. WSDOT is following federal law.Under maritime rules, boats get the right-of-way over vehicles when bridges block the … Loading... We’ll stop supporting this browser soon. Skip navigation Sign in. “We broadcast a lot of sports, too. “In fact, I don’t remember exactly how many, [but] we had to call people in to man the phones because everybody was calling the radio station to find out what was going on, even though we were [talking about] it on the air. HistoryLink.org Photo by Priscilla Long They closed the drawspan briefly around 2 a.m. to let a Puget Power crew cross, and then opened up the drawspan again. For instance, in 1979, the only way you could get 24-hour news updates was to have a Associated Press or United Press International teletype installed in your home. Ferry service was eventually also offered between Edmonds and Port Townsend, and then the repaired bridge opened officially on Sunday, October 24, 1982, though traffic had been allowed across the day before. Of course, this was many years before online social media, when local radio functioned as a kind of analog, real-time social media and internet all rolled into one. Around 11 p.m., Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) crews on the bridge closed it to vehicle traffic and opened the drawspan in the middle of the bridge to relieve pressure. The Coast Guard says 8 people self-rescued from the boat's dinghy and made it safely to shore. The yacht “Silver Lining” was carrying eight people when it … And what happened to all the wreckage from the 1979 sinking? “We were told there was 300 gallons of diesel and 12 gallons of oil onboard the vessel.”. The steel anchor cables and bridals were removed.”. It does, particularly because only 11 years ago another regionally famous floating bridge broke up and sank in heavy weather. WSDOT employee Chuck Myers told The Seattle Times that he blamed a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy for not remaining at the west end of the bridge to keep vehicles from driving out onto the floating portion. On the night of Monday, February 12, 1979, the region was struck by a classic Puget Sound wind event. “I mean, we probably had it on the air, confirmed, within 15 minutes of the bridge going down,” MacDonald said. Although the boat is out of deep water, Unger said there is still a risk to the local marine wildlife. The boat has 300 gallons of diesel and 12 gallons of oil on board. “There was sheening,” Read said. Condition:--not specified. First opened 59 years ago in 1961, it was the second concrete floating bridge constructed in Washington. It was his third radio job, after stints at KAAR in Yakima and KOMW in Omak. However, newspaper accounts at the time say that four or five passenger cars and a semi-truck had barely made it off the west section of pontoons before the pontoons broke loose and sank. “It impacted everybody a lot,” Jim MacDonald said. A family is trying to get back on their feet after their 65-foot yacht partially sank about 1.3 miles southwest of the Hood Canal Bridge in Jefferson County on Tuesday. 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Slade said. In November 1990, the 6,600-foot-long bridge, made of 22 floating bolted-together pontoons, was in the process of being converted from a two-way road to a one-way road. Baker said via email that “the bridge’s pontoons and concrete gravity anchors were left on the bottom of the canal. “It took them a few weeks before they got some ferry service across the canal. Fortunately, nobody was injured or killed when the Hood Canal Bridge went down. The operator of the 71-foot cabin cruiser Silver Lining grounded on a charted shoal known as the Sisters near Hood Canal Bridge with eight people aboard. He told The Seattle Times, “I knew this was worse than any other storm we’d had. A low pressure system moved across the area just north of Puget Sound and essentially drained all the air from Western Washington like a massive bathtub. Courtesy Seattle Public Library (spl_pc_10004) Lacy V. Murrow Bridge sinking, Seattle, Mercer Island, November 25, 1990. Roger Slade of TowBoatUS was dispatched by Jefferson County 9-1-1 at approximately 5:30 p.m. Make sure you have the WSDOT mobile app and check our winter driving webpage. Or, you could just call your local radio station. We had our local news at the top of every hour and local weather, we had all those kinds of things,” MacDonald said earlier this week, from his home in Anacortes. The Hood Canal Bridge suffered catastrophic failure in 1979 during the February 13 windstorm. SHINE — It was 30 years ago Friday that hurricane-force winds sank the west half of the Hood Canal Bridge, and those who witnessed the aftermath of the catastrophe greeted it with disbelief, shock, fear and amazement. Jefferson County reporter Zach Jablonski can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. Qualified or nearly qualified IBU employees were encouraged by the WSF to take the actions necessary to fill these positions. But we’d never had both at the same time.”, Another WSDOT staffer on duty that day was George Tyner. Since that time, it has b Tyner told The Seattle Times, “This storm was the worst for the swells, with the winds working against the tide. . 5 or at [email protected]. Today we drove over the Hood canal Bridge. Courtesy WSDOT. And WSDOT employee Chuck Myers did lose what sounds like a treasured possession in the Hood Canal Bridge sinking: his 1967 Plymouth that had been parked on one of the western pontoons. No injuries or fatalities were reported in connection with the accident that resulted in an estimated $500,000 in property damage when the Silver Lining, with eight people on board, struck an underwater rock formation, took on water and sank near the Hood Canal Bridge, Puget Sound, Washington. It was Washington’s second floating bridge, coming 21 years after the Lacey V. Murrow Bridge carrying what is now I-90 across Lake Washington at Mercer Island, and two years before the Albert Rosellini Evergreen Point 520 Floating Bridge between Medina and Montlake. For live updates: Visit the Hood Canal Bridge Area Traffic Alerts and Cameras page.. Why does WSDOT open the bridge for one boat which results in traffic backups? seriously?’” MacDonald said. The low tide was starting at 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, and that was when the main pumping was going to occur, so “And she said, ‘Yeah, [my sister] said that the bridge is gone.’ So I said, ‘Okay Marge, we’ll follow up on that.”. “When the news director got off the air, I told him about the call, and he called the Port Angeles detachment of the State Patrol,” MacDonald said. The Hood Canal Bridge is a floating bridge in the northwest United States, located in western Washington. The yacht “Silver Lining” was carrying eight people when it reportedly hit a submerged object and began to sink Tuesday, said Petty Officer 1st Class Levi Read of the Coast Guard. the vessel could be lifted with the incoming tide, Unger said. The “ONP” in the Port Angeles station’s call-letters stood for “Olympic National Park,” because the station’s founder, Charles Webster, had been a booster of the effort to create that park back in the 1930s. Total cost of the 1.3 mile span was $25 million in 1961, or the equivalent of about $210 million in 2019 dollars. High winds blew throughout the area, with downed trees and widespread power outages. Early on the morning of February 13, 1979, KONP had its usual skeleton crew of two. The western portion of the original Hood Canal Bridge sank in a windstorm on February 13, 1979; the repaired bridge opened in 1982. At 7,869 feet in length, it is the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater tidal basin, and the fourth longest floating bridge overall. And she tells me, she says, ‘You know, my sister lives above the Hood Canal Bridge, and she just called me and said the bridge has sunk.’”, “My first thought is, ‘No . Federal investigators determined a yacht sinking in Puget Sound that caused an estimated $500,000 in damage stemmed from faulty dead reckoning. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Such review shall include: (a) An examina-tion of the need to relocate existing ferry terminals; (b) interim Little KONP in little Port Angeles had the scoop of the century, as far as any other story that would impact the Olympic Peninsula, before or since. Have an emergency kit in your vehicle and be aware of forecasts. A few other WSDOT trucks weren’t so lucky; they went to the bottom of Hood Canal. SHINE — No one was harmed after a 65-foot yacht partially sank near the Hood Canal Bridge in 80- to 90-foot-deep water. At 7:30 p.m., they were sent back out when it was confirmed the boat had only partially sunk and was drifting with the current. TowBoatUS and Global Diving and Salvage were hired by the vessel’s insurer to assist with the rescue, recovery and containment of the potential oil spills, said Read. 65-foot boat sinking near Hood Canal Bridge | KATU Eight people managed to escape to safety when their 65-foot boat began sinking near the Hood Canal Bridge Tuesday evening. They sold both stations in 2002 and eventually relocated to Anacortes. 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In the immediate aftermath of the bridge sinking, Jim MacDonald says KONP had to bring in extra people that day to help answer the phones. “As you might expect, they were in the throes of the whole thing, too, but they did confirm to us that a portion of the bridge had gone down, and they were still trying to figure out how much of the bridge had gone down, and all sorts of other things, because their office was going crazy.”. Editor’s note: Special thanks to Benjamin Helle of the Washington State Archives for assistance with images for this story. Jim MacDonald is retired now; he and his wife ultimately bought KONP, as well as Port Angeles station KAPY. — The Coast Guard says eight people escaped a sinking yacht in Hood Canal. The western highrise hinged down into the water, but stayed attached to the concrete approach to the west end of the bridge. Marge is a loyal listener and a friend of ours. Total cost of the new western section was $150 million or $390 million in 2019 dollars. But what became of Chuck Myers’ beloved 1967 Plymouth? The Hood Canal Bridge connected the Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Peninsula across the mouth of Hood Canal; prior to the bridge, a Washington State Ferry carried vehicles and passengers from Lofall on the Kitsap County side to South Point on the Jefferson County side. The bridge was 7,869 feet longin total, and the floating portion of the bridge was 6,521 feet. As of Wednesday afternoon, the boat was still resting in the shallows near the 300 block of North Beach Drive in Port Ludlow as the salvage team worked to patch the holes in the hull and pump the water off the vessel for it to regain buoyancy, Unger said. But KONP, and pretty much every radio station back then, had more going out over the airwaves than just music. Lucky-to-be-alive semi driver Red Taylor was one of the first to cross. The original eastern half was replaced in 2009 for $500 million. Despite a lot of anxiety about the closure, others also recall the 1979 sinking of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, which left the area isolated for three years before the new bridge opened. The elevated concrete superstructure on the pontoons was broken into rubble so it would not interfere with the new pontoons and anchoring system; any rubble that would interfere with the anchoring system was removed. Storms have the potential to close the SR 104 Hood Canal Bridge until weather conditions improve. (Washington State Archives). SHINE — No one was harmed after a 65-foot yacht partially sank near the Hood Canal Bridge in 80- to 90-foot-deep water. And though there were no human casualties, the loss of the bridge deeply affected Jefferson County and Clallam County, and much of the northern portion of Olympic Peninsula. Global Diving and Salvage on Wednesday works to get the 65-foot yacht Silver Lining floating after it struck an unknown object and partially sank Tuesday night near the Hood Canal Bridge. “I can tell you that we’ve not found any vehicles in any of the underwater surveys we’ve done since then.”. Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies also responded to the incident Tuesday night. — The U.S. Coast Guard Seattle is at the scene of a 65-foot boat taking on water near the Hood Canal Bridge. In February 1979, Anne Murray topped the “AC” charts with “I Just Fall In Love Again.” A few weeks later, Poco’s “Crazy Love” would knock Murray out of first place. For several hours before the Tuesday the 13th catastrophe, a storm has battered the bridge with winds of 80 miles per hour gusting to 120 miles per hour. On Tuesday, February 13, 1979, about 7 a.m., the western half of the Hood Canal Bridge sinks during a severe storm. It was pretty crazy.”. “Salvages are never perfect, but it looks like it’s going well.”. Capt. Plus we were working with a low tide, so the anchor cables for the bridge were more slack, permitting more movement.”. It was “a great old car,” Myers told The Seattle Times. Today we drove over the Hood canal Bridge. These positions were under the jurisdiction of the Masters, Mates and Pilots’ Union. The Coast Guard received the distress call at 3:30 p.m. And the ferry service was basically a barge that was pushed across by a tugboat. “We were an ABC affiliate, so we had ABC News. Price: US $8.99. Around 6 a.m. on February 13, the wind was gusting from the south at over 100 mph. The pontoons were also connected via steel cables to concrete anchors set into the bottom of Hood Canal. (20) A review of the effects of the Hood Canal Bridge sinking, and the department of transportation's effort to provide interim transportation ser-vices for users of that corridor. Once the vessel is back on top of the water, the team will remove the diesel from the boat to prevent possibilities of leakage. 65-foot boat started sinking 1.3 miles SW of the Hood Canal Bridge. Lake Washington Floating Bridge, ca. “And so I answer the phone, and it’s Marge Pieratt. We had high school sports, we had the University of Washington Huskies, Mariners, Seahawks.”. We’d had winds worse than this, and currents worse. No injuries or fatalities were reported in connection with the accident that resulted in an estimated $500,000 in property damage when Silver Lining, with eight people on board, struck an underwater rock formation, took on water and sank near the Hood Canal Bridge, Puget Sound, Wash. Item Information. Chuck Myers was a WSDOT employee on duty at the bridge that morning. In that storm, The Hood Canal Floating Bridge broke apart and sank to the bottom. “There were just two people at the station, just myself and the news director,” MacDonald said. Even though the tip had come from a trusted friend, Jim MacDonald knew couldn’t just go on the air from KONP with what was essentially a rumor. Those cars and that truck had been waiting for the bridge to reopen to vehicle traffic. Eight people were onboard and safely made it to shore in a dinghy. The passengers were able to escape the vessel by boarding their dinghy and getting ashore, Read said. There were three points along the bridge where vessels could transit: One was at the center of the bridge When the team was en-route they were informed the boat had reportedly sunk already, so they returned to Port Hadlock, Slade said. The floating pontoons on the west half of the bridge began taking on water and listing around 6:40 a.m. Around 7:15 am, the western section, including Pontoons A through M – each 360 feet long, broke loose, drifted slightly north, and then rolled over and sank to the bottom of Hood Canal. POULSBO, Wash. — Eight people managed to escape to safety when their 65-foot boat began sinking near the Hood Canal Bridge Tuesday evening. The semi truck driver, a man named Red Taylor, apparently had a difficult time backing his truck off the bridge, but he managed to do it, by all accounts, in barely the nick of time. On either side of the drawspan, the Hood Canal Floating Bridge (which is very similar to the original 1940 I-90 and 1963 520 floating bridges) consisted of a series of floating concrete pontoons connected to each other, and to a “highrise” at the west and east ends of the bridge. There was no simple solution for where to send the average 6,000 vehicles per day that had crossed the span. During the night, the bridge had withstood sustained winds of up to 85 mph (137 km/h) and gusts estimated at 120 mph (190 km/h), and finally succumbed at about 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 13. The Hood Canal Bridge, opened in 1961, connects the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas across Hood Canal of Puget Sound. Span's sinking in 1990 triggered a demand; next is Hood Canal Bridge. There was a small lube oil spill from the boat, said Andrea Unger, a member of the state Department of Ecology Spill Response Team. © 2021 Bonneville International. MacDonald was working at KONP 1450 in Port Angeles. “Ecology is always a concern until the vessel is out of the water,” Unger said. SHINE — No one was harmed after a 65-foot yacht partially sank near the Hood Canal Bridge in 80- to 90-foot-deep water. Additional information about the Hood Canal Bridge is located on the Common Questions web page. Hood Canal Bridge Windstorm Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 - YouTube JUST IN: A 65-foot recreational boat is sinking 1.3 miles SW of the Hood Canal Bridge. It carries State Route 104 across Hood Canal of Puget Sound and connects the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas. 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