I-5 Bridge Collapse at Mount Vernon, WA

Many truckers travel Hwy 9 to avoid the weigh station on Bow Hill. Now, they have a better excuse. We will make alternate plans when we head for eastern Oregon, probably Hwy 20 over the North Cascades Hwy.

I won't be driving up to Bellingham to visit my friends for a while.

After we get back to Fidalgo Island on Monday, we may not leave the island for a while. Like during the Tulip Festival, and after the tsunami.

For all practical purposes I-5 is the ONLY route for traffic and commerce between Seattle and Vancouver, BC. This is devastating for this part of the State and the N.W.

The least used detour will be north bound, off at Conway follow Fir Island road, to Highway 20. east to I-5.

South, off at 20 west to Best Rd. south to Fir Island Rd, and conway and I-5

Actually the bridge was declared "functionally obsolete" in 2010. Our trip across the bridge and back to Walmart could have been eventful!

New reports suggest that an oversized vehicle and load may have struck a portion of the bridge that caused the collapse. Someone better have insurance?

This bridge is just 20 miles down I-5 from us. The Saturday before Mothers Day, we made 4 trips across that bridge. Not too many detours that won't have lights unless you travel Hwy 9. I think we need to repair our aging infrastructure. This could have been worse.

Twice.....today!!!

I don't know if where you are has a lottery but today sounds like the best day for you to buy a ticket.

OUR (USA) roads & infrastructure are in dire need of major up-fitting, rebuilding and quite frankly replacing.

Some bridge work has been done but dang there are a lot to do.
This collapse is a bit ominous considering this one passed muster 5 yrs. ago

The state Department of Transportation had described the bridge as "structurally sound and safe" as recently as 2008.

I hope no one was injured seriously

Thats astonishing - I'm watching it on TV now. At least no one was seriously injured.
I can't imagine how long this will take to fix.