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King County finishes up seismic retrofits on 115 county bridges

Watch this video clip (Real Media) Length: (2:50)

Watch this video clip (Windows Media) Length: (2:50)

Narrator Says:

Work is just wrapping up on a seismic retrofit of the Green River Gorge bridge, not only bolstering the safety of this particular bridge in the event of an earth-quake, but also marking a major county milestone.

Since 1994, the King County Road Services Division has been strengthening more than 100 bridges, to make sure vital county lifelines won’t be cut off when a major earth-quake strikes our region.

Roads Division Director Linda Dougherty says this $22 million dollar program has been a priority over the last 14 years.

King county Road Services Division Director Linda Dougherty says:

They are really, out in the unincorporated area of the county, many, many of our roadways travel back and forth across water, and so of course we got a lot of bridges. And therefore, they're kind of a key linchpin for the entire road network out in the unincorporated areas.

And so, making sure that people have access to emergency services and food. Really basic things, and then fairly shortly after an earthquake event would be able to begin resuming their normal lives is really important.

Narrator Says:

In all, the county has strengthened 115 of the roughly 200 road bridges the county maintains, they range in age, some of them are more than 90 years old.

County engineers prioritized the bridges by their vulnerability to major earth-quakes.

Dougherty says with all the competing transportation needs in the county, this project was a priority because of the vital role the bridges will play in the event of a disaster.

King county Road Services Division Director Linda Dougherty says:

Well, it was a priority for a couple of reasons. Number one, our roadways are key routes for people to get to and from their jobs, to and from emergency assistance if people need to go to the hospital and also for emergency vehicles to get to citizens if people need help. And so, making sure that during and following that the bridges could fairly quickly be returned to operational situation again is really, really important.

Narrator Says:

Retrofits are implemented in three phases, phase one is structural evaluation, phase two is developing a unique approach for each bridge using computer models, and phase three is the actual construction work to strengthen the bridge.

Dougherty says county residents should feel good about the state of the county’s bridge network.

King county Road Services Division Director Linda Dougherty says:

I think people should be very comfortable using the county's bridges. I think one of the things, that we're very fortunate, is that when the Nisqually earthquake struck the area in 2001, that many of our bridges, many of our vulnerable bridges had already been retrofitted.

And when our bridge engineers went out immediately following the event to check and inspect those bridges, what we found is that they suffered very little effects as a result of the earthquake. So that, to us, was a confirmation that this seismic retrofit program is doing exactly what it should be doing, which is preserving the bridges as making them very much more resistant to the effects of earthquakes.

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Updated:  October 07, 2008

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