Falling Debris On West Seattle Bridge

[PMCG]

Hi,

At around 12.25pm today (Tuesday 7/21/09) as I came on to the West Seattle bridge proper from Fauntleroy Way SW… so just after you do the big swooping down curve and start to actually go back up hill on the bridge… as the lower entry ramps start to merge left into the main lane… I was in the main right lane, not the the main left fast lane… right around 12.25pm at lunchtime I heard a massive bang and glass came flying into my car… I ducked, looked up and sure enough I now have a baseball size impact smash/crack in the center of the windshield (its huge nothing like a normal rock chip) and 2 smaller (one dime size, one nickel size) almost completely punctured impact spots within the main baseball size smashed crack impact zone, along with the half a dozen full size windshield cracks emanating from this massive destruction zone.

Anyhow, I am posting to see if anyone else saw or had any issue today at the same time…. I had just flashed a car infront of me to merge but the car was a good 30 ft ahead and I saw nothing bounce up form that car or from the road, I saw no debris or no rocks or any flying objects.

The only thing I can think of is potentially was I under an overhead sign and did a bolt fall on me? Would explain the two spots (nickel size and dime size, bolt head and shaft) that almost totally penetrated the windshield pushing and crushing the glass laminates all the way through causing glass shards to explode over me inside the car… the interior is covered in glass shards…. I have to drive back over the bridge and work out if there is signage overhead on that spot, I am not sure, but did anyone else see or have issues today in that area of the bridge?

I am guessing there’s no way to prove it if it was SDOT’s signage collapsing on me but I would like to know for peace of mind? Anyone?

Thanks.

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[jwws]

Were you under the pedestrian overpass – sounds like someone throwing a rock…. Thank goodness you were not injured!

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[WSB]

If you think someone threw something PLEASE report it to police. That sort of thing can kill, and has killed, people.

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[miws]

It sounds to me like the OP was heading eastbound, going up the incline of the high-rise, over the Duwamish.

Mike

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[PMCG]

So I drove back the other way to check out what was above me in the spot where I got hit and bizarrely there is no signage or anything over that spot…

I was traveling eastbound when it happened, quite a ways after the pedestrian overpass and the log-people statues… just as the incline starts up again on the bridge proper and the lower entry ramps merge into the main 2 lanes eastbound…

All I can think is either something from one of the lamp posts fell or more likely a truck going the opposite direction (west) lost a bolt which bounced across the lanes coming at me from behind but landing squarely in the center of the windshield.

Either way no one was hurt but glass everywhere and a massive hole in the glass… thanks for the feedback though, glad no one else experienced the same today ~ pmcg.

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[miws]

Yes, definitely scary! Glad you’re okay.

Even if the driver is not directly hit or injured by the object, something like that is startling enough that an accident could happen due to the driver’s reaction.

Twenty years or so ago, when the I-90 Bridge was still under construction, one of my customers at the Downtown Seattle parking garage I worked at at the time, left his car with me, and asked if I could vacuum it out for him.

A decent sized hole was in the passenger side of the windshield, and of course, safety glass scatterd all over. A rock had come flying off of a dump truck that was ahead of him, in, or near the construction zone.

If it had come through the driver’s side of the windshield, he would likely have been injured at the very least, or in a worst case scenario, killed.

Mike

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