Date:  Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Contact: Archie Allen, WSDOT Bridge Superintendent, 425-739-3700 (Bellevue)
Myly Posse, WSDOT Communications, 206-440-4700 (Seattle)

SEATTLE - Seattle City Light crews shut down power on the west end of the SR 520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge between the exit to Montlake Boulevard and the west half of the drawspan after discovering a blown fuse at the Foster Island power vault. They will restore power as soon as crews replace the blown fuse, repair a damaged splice, and inspect the power vault for further electrical flaws. The outage could last up to three days. Although this will not affect vehicle and marine traffic operations on the bridge, drivers are urged to drive cautiously on the darkened west end of the bridge outside of daylight hours.

“The Foster Island vault powers the street and bridge lights, traffic cameras, variable message sign, HAR radio signal, and pontoon alarms on the west end of the bridge ,” said Bridge Maintenance Superintendent Archie Allen. "We apologize for the inconvenience and we're working as quickly as possible to get everything back up and running."

WSDOT bridge crews hung temporary navigation lights off the bridge yesterday to prevent boats from colliding into the structure. Installing temporary lighting for the darkened roadway is a more complicated and time consuming process that will disrupt traffic. Crews will only install the roadway lighting if the inspections uncover further electrical flaws that require at least an additional week to address.

The disabled west-end pontoon alarms do not pose a threat to the floating bridge for this brief duration. The alarms will sound if 6 inches of water seep through an interior water-tight hatch into one of the compartments on the bridge. Because the bridge is comprised of many compartments, water in the west compartments would not increase the risk of bridge failure. In addition, this week's weather forecast is not calling for a major storm front with high winds that would concern bridge engineers.

Crews working for Seattle City Light and WSDOT shut down power on the west end of the bridge around 7 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 10, to work on a transformer. They discovered the blown fuse was due to a splice that may have been damaged during the Dec. 3 storm. Crews must repair the splice before Seattle City Light can safely restore power. WSDOT will replace six other fuses as a precaution in case they also sustained damage.

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