BUCKLEY, Wash. — There is no estimated time for the White River Bridge to reopen between Buckley and Enumclaw after a semi-type truck hit the steel over the roadway at a “high rate of speed.”
For drivers, the detour is a 38-mile round trip through Auburn that takes around an hour, depending on the traffic.
For walkers and cyclists, the Foothills Trail Bridge, just upstream from the White River Bridge, can get people to and from Buckley and Enumclaw in a 20-minute bike ride.
“I am thankful that this is here so that if people need something and have a friend on the other side, they can meet,” Buckley resident Deanne Badenock said.
That’s precisely what Badenock and her friend, Katrina Anderson, did on Tuesday.
Badenock needed her prescription glasses picked up in Enumclaw, and Anderson lives near Enumclaw.
This saved Badenock an hour each way.
“She’s my ride or die, so anything I need, she’s there,” Badenock said.
That is an arrangement that may be needed for the foreseeable future, as the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) hasn’t yet announced when, or if, the 76-year-old White River Bridge will reopen after a large truck hit the steel bars crossing over the bridge several times on Monday morning.
“It struck the bridge at a high rate of speed in several locations,” RB McKeon said, a spokesperson for WSDOT.
Tuesday, engineers were on-site inspecting the bridge. The data will then be plugged into a computer model to determine the next steps.
“That’s kind of a fancy way of helping us determine how much damage has been done to the bridge and next steps for repair or if we can reopen in a certain way,” McKeon said.
The bridge, the type of which typically has a 75-year lifespan, had passed its every-other-year inspection in May with WSDOT saying it is in “fair” condition.
“It would not be closed if it had not been struck,” McKeon said.
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