(Green River, WY) – Governor Mark Gordon, WYDOT Director Darin Westby, and various officials held a press conference at the Sweetwater County Board of Commissioners’ meeting chambers in the Green River courthouse at 12 PM today, to update the public on the multi-vehicle collision that occurred in the I-80 tunnels near Green River on February 14.
The incident resulted multiple fatalies, explosions that caused smoke to billow out of both ends of the tunnel, the temporary closure of I-80 to all travel, and has since made national headlines.
“First I want to commend local law enforcement, our highway patrol, and especially our fire department,” Governor Gordon shared at the start of the conference. “This has been a very tough time for your folks. I know the circumstances were really tough and did not allow for as much as everybody wanted to do. Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring as much as you do. Please bear all these people in your prayers and their hearts. We’ll get through. This is what Wyoming does.”
Governor Gordon also later shared that he has “directed all the resources of the state that are available as appropriate to be there.”
“I think it’s important to know that communication is incredibly critical here and we are working very hard to make sure that the feds, the state and the local all have the same information so that there is a clear line of communication. Incidents like this can easily lead to rabbit trails or false comments or discussion points.”
Major James Thomas with the Wyoming Highway Patrol outlined the initial response, which began at 11:38 AM and took place on the westbound side of I-80 at about milepost 90 in the tunnel.
The initial observations of the crash determined that it involved several vehicles, resulting in an active fire which “prevented some of the life saving measures there that we could do at that time until fire conditions could improve,” Major Thomas shared.
Multiple agencies responded, and Major Thomas credited the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Department, the Green River Police Department, the Green River Fire Department, Castle Rock Ambulance, the Division of Criminal Investigation, and others for their aid.
Firefighters worked the fire from both ends of the tunnel “well into the evening,” starting with the west end “as far as they could” before moving to the east end, Major Thomas informed.
Even after some of the fires inside the tunnel were put out, “conditions were still not safe for investigators and responders to go inside,” Major Thomas continued, due to “structural concerns and air quality.”
Major Thomas went on to share that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will conduct a parallel investigation along with the WHP.
He added that working through the investigation will be “a long process,” starting with evidence documentation and mapping of the scene.
“It’s really going to be a long process just because of the level, the magnitude of the incident, and then being able to document everything that we need to make sure that our investigation is thorough and we can get a good understanding of what happened.”
John Eddins, District 3 WYDOT Engineer for the Rock Springs area, explained that traffic has had to be re-routed through Green River on Flaming Gorge Way.
“We’re very much aware of the impact that puts on the community of Green River,” Eddins commented before explaining that crews are “working diligently on the construction and maintenance side to get a miles-worth concrete barrier rounded up to get it placed,” with the goal being to “safely run traffic head-to-head on the eastbound lane and through the eastbound lane tunnels.”
“That’s not a perfect solution,” Eddins continued. “When you look at the width of those tunnels, we’re going to be really down to an effective lane width of about 10 and half, 11 feet.”
Any vehicle over width or over height will have to be restricted, Eddins stated, and added that “oversized loads are going to have to go around via 191, 28, 372.”
“I know (that) is a hardship as well, but it’s the best solution we have. We know we can’t leave traffic on Flaming Gorge Way for very long.”
The aim is to have the eastbound lane ready to run head-to-head in two to three days, Eddins added, but not until it is determined that there are no structural issues in the eastbound tunnel.
Eddins went on to inform that a joint release is forthcoming, and that WYDOT plans to put out “continual, factual, accurate information,” to help “dispel some of the misnomers that are going around.”
Westby also reiterated during the conference that, “from a traffic perspective, the 511 app that’s on the Wyoming High Wyoming Department of Transportation website is a very good resource for traffic flow and if there’s any changes or any closures, that’s your quickest way to get that information.”
Randy Ringstmeyer, WYDOT’s bridge and tunnel inspector, was the next to speak, and shared that crews did a “full assessment of the eastbound lane tunnel” to make sure it will be safe to carry traffic if needed, and they “didn’t see any anomalies.” However, crews were unable to get into the westbound tunnel due to smoke and continuous unsafe conditions.
Ringstmeyer added that crews were able to get partway into the westbound tunnel this morning, where they oberved “extensive fire damage” near the middle third of the tunnel.
“I want to say that the rock itself, there’s no issues with the integrity of the rock. So we’re not expecting the mountain to collapse (or) the tunnel to collapse. That’s not going to happen.”
Ringstmeyer went on to inform that another issue is that the inside of the tunnel is lined with concrete, and the fire has damaged some of the tunnel liner, which is causing “loose concrete coming down that the first responders are having to avoid.” That liner is about 1 foot, 3 inches thick.
He then shared that crews are hoping to get help from the photos and surveys group, and to use LIDAR to be able to look for any “geometry anomalies.”
“We don’t want to see any sagging. We did not see that visually, as of now. There’s enough wreckage inside the tunnel where we were not able to get within arm’s reach, so we’re going to have to do a follow-up inspection once the wreckage is removed.”
He added that there is also “really extensive damage” to the lighting system.
“The lighting system is held up to the liner with friction anchors, and this damage could affect the integrity of those anchors; they could potentially pull out. So all those are going to have to be checked as well. It’s going to be a long process.”
The floor was soon opened to questions from those in attendence.
During the Q and A, it was shared that it has yet to be determined if criminal charges will come from this incident, and that the County Attorney will have a better idea once the investigation brief and incident scene walkthroughs have been completed.
Major Thomas also added that the total number of fatalities and injuries is unkown at this point.
“We’re still working through that and once that information becomes available, we’ll be able to release that.”
An online attendee then asked for elaboration on some of the “misnomers” mentioned earlier in the meeting, to which Eddins shared that there was some early confusion about the tunnel collapsing, but they wanted to clarify that is “not the case.”
Later on Eddins commented that depending on the NTSB’s investigation, which will have WYDOT and WHP members on the team, budgeting for an automated de-icing system may be looked into as a solution if it is determined that was a leading cause of the crash, but de-icing systems present their own issues, which will also have to be looked into.
When asked if there was an estimate about the timeframe for repairs on the westbound tunnel, Eddins reponded they have “no idea.”
“We won’t have any idea until we get in there and do the LIDAR survey,” he shared, and added that crews will need to “(check) with the thermal cameras to see if there are any hot spots in that concrete,” and go through “every square foot of that concrete liner.”
Major Thomas also shared that it is unknown how many total vehicles were involved in the crash.
“We don’t have a count on all the vehicles involved, mainly because of just the length of time it’s taken our investigators to get through there and the safety concerns at this point.”
Those estimates are hoped to be obtained in the next day or two.
House District 17 Representative J.T. Larson was also one of the atendees, and referenced past discussions about the “need for an alternative route between Rock Springs and Green River.” He asked where that conversation left off.
“I know that it’s an expensive project and it’s more of a long term solution, but it could be an option for our community, because oftentimes there are accidents between Rock Springs and Green River.”
“The Wyoming Department of Transportation and our commission have looked at that road as the alternate road for quite a while and you’re right, it’s going to be an expensive venture,” Westby replied. “I know from a planning perspective, it’s on the table. That’s about as far as I know.
“The discussion on that alternative route between Rock Springs has been going on (since) before my tenure in Rock Springs, back to the 80s,” Eddins added. “But we’ve looked at it with the city of Green River, Rock Springs (and) the county involved. In my opinion, it would be nice, but in today’s money, a road that would be all-weather, that could carry traffic in the winter and in the event of issues carry semis, 80,000 to 117,000 pound loads, that road would probably be now pushing the 50 million 60 million dollar price range.”
“It’d be hard to peel off $60 million from from District 3’s annual budget to do that road. So it boils down to, you know, what are our priorities,” Eddins commented after discussing some of the other major projects that need funding.
It was also later shared that so far, no crews, reponders or law enrofrcment members have been reported to have been harmed during the investigation.
“There have been some really heroic efforts on the part of our fire, EMS, some of our troopers, even off-duty troopers,” Governor Gordon later commented at the end of the press cnference. “That’s going to be tough for them. Please give them support, reach out to them. This community is phenomenal in the way it’s responded. Thank you to the hospital and others. We’ll get through this.”
“I just want to add it’s important that people drive carefully, especially during bad conditions,” Governor Gordon also stated at one point during the discussion. “It is interesting to me that with all the great features and safety elements that are in our vehicles and our cell phones and everything else, the distraction and maybe not driving with a common sense approach of “It’s icy, the conditions are dangerous. I should slow down, I should take a little more distance between.” You know, perhaps we could have avoided having quite such a chain reaction if we had had a little bit more ability to kind of recognize the conditions at hand.”
You can watch the press conference in full below. The Q and A portion begins around the 21 minute mark.