An Enumclaw local has become a key figure in the repairs of the White River bridge.
Brie Crites, owner of Puyallup-based Farwest Fabrication, has been working closely with the Washington State Department of Transportation to manufacture and deliver the steel beams and columns necessary to open up the critical Plateau corridor after it was severely damaged by a vac truck on Aug. 18.
The bridge closure has affected thousands of people who now have an hour commute to get from one city to the other, or have to travel over the Foothills Trail pedestrian bridge.
Crites does see one upside, though.
“The lack of traffic over the bridge has been kind of nice… we [live in] that neighborhood that everybody cuts through to get to the bridge faster,” Crites said. “I haven’t missed that, that’s for sure.”
It was big news earlier this month that WSDOT crews finished up temporary repairs early last Friday, allowing for an emergency contract with Guy F. Atkinson Construction to be signed two days early.
In the background, however, Atkinson signed a contract with Farwest Fabrication on Sept 11. Eight days later, Crites and her crew were able to deliver the five beams and six columns to the bridge site, all ready for Atkinson to use.
“We pushed it through real fast,” Crites said.
Farwest has a lot of experience working with WSDOT or other private contractors involved in public projects, as her father started the company 35 years ago.
But this project has been unique in its speed, a topic of which is often discussed — and more often than not, complained about — on community Facebook pages.
“For us to sign a contract on Thursday (Sept. 11), have steel delivered to our facility on Friday and Monday, and then have the project completed and out the door in its entirety, inspected by WSDOT, by Thursday is pretty impressive,” Crites said.
She explained that every step of the manufacturing process has to go through an inspection process; if an inspector is not immediately available, project progress can grind to a halt.
For this project, though, WSDOT basically assigned an inspector to this project in order to get the steel out the door as fast as possible.
It’s unclear if or how Crites’ team quickly manufacturing the steel may affect the speed of which the bridge may open, but WSDOT has set a goal of between Halloween and Nov. 14.
“It is very early in the work for us to predict whether or not we will reopen earlier than forecasted,” WSDOT Communications Manager RB McKeon said. “Crews continue working seven days a week and will until the work is done and bridge is reopened.”
The opening goal was greeted with skepticism on social media, with many commenters claiming the process should take far less time.
The state process can be slow, Crites said, but in this instance, this is as fast as she’s ever seen the department pull everything together.
“When people are inconvenienced, time goes a lot slower,” she continued.
Although the time she spent on this project was swift and fleeting, Crites is proud that her company is contributing in such a big way to the Plateau’s livelihood.
“There’s a lot of pride in that,” she said. “… It was a great opportunity to be involved in something that has such a positive effect on my community.”
Crites isn’t the only local helping to open this critical corridor — after her crew was done manufacturing the steel, Jabez Coatings in Orting painted the steel , and Enumclaw resident Frank LeTourneau, owner of NW Heavy Haul, brought the steel from Orting to the bridge for installation.
“It’s cool to be able to be a part of something like this,” LeTourneau said. “… For this bridge to put a hurt on Enumclaw and Buckley the way that it has, and be a part of it opening back up, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing.”
