PORT ANGELES – Clallam County closed its decrepit Elwha River Road bridge to traffic on Thursday afternoon – the local wave of “a ripple effect” from Wednesday’s catastrophe in Minneapolis.
The bridge would have been closed in about two weeks in any case, said County Engineer Ross Tyler, for demolition and eventual replacement.
The Federal Highway Administration recommended the closure on Thursday.
It acted in the wake of Interstate 35W’s plunge into the Mississippi River in Minnesota during rush hour a day earlier.
Tyler said some drivers who use the Elwha River Road bridge may have been inconvenienced in their Wednesday homebound trips but that the federal action made sense.
“They say everything happens in threes,” he said, “and I’d just as soon not be No. 2 or No. 3 on somebody’s list.”
