‘Is the damn tow truck there yet?’: Emails reveal anger, frustration in Seattle City Hall after fish truck debacle

Anger, frustration in City Hall revealed over SR 99 accident that gridlocked Seattle

Anger, frustration in City Hall revealed over SR 99 accident that gridlocked Seattle

SEATTLE -- The city of Seattle released a report Friday detailing lessons learned from an accident on State Route 99 last month that sent area traffic into gridlock.

Meanwhile, emails obtained by Q13 Fox show anger and frustration in City Hall over the amount of time it took to clear the accident – nearly nine hours.

At 2:23 p.m. on March 24, a tractor-trailer full of fish overturned on SR 99, blocking all southbound lanes near Royal Brougham Way South.

The Seattle Police Department responded within minutes and began to reroute traffic, but the damage was done. Coupled with two additional accidents and added traffic from a Seattle Sounders game, the city was at a standstill.

“Is the damn tow truck there on scene yet?” Mayor Ed Murray’s communications director, Viet Shelton, wrote in an email to several city officials at 5:17 p.m. – nearly three hours into the ordeal.

“If so…can someone for the love of all….please update the public?” Shelton wrote, frustrated with the lack of communication.

The subject line of the email read, “No, Seriously.”

Meanwhile, tow trucks tried repeatedly to right the trailer, but failed. As the hours went by, the congestion worsened.

With help from Seattle Tunnel Partners, the contractor working on the nearby Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, the trailer was finally righted at 7:08 p.m.

At 11:37 p.m., all lanes of traffic were reopened.

In an email to several city officials the following morning, Seattle Transportation Director Scott Kubly defended his department’s response.

“I am very pleased with how we handled this,” he wrote. “Please note we had two additional crashes last night gumming up the evening commute.”

Over in the mayor’s office, Viet Shelton wasn’t buying it. He shot back a quick email.

“Not for nothing,” he wrote. “I sorta feel like after 7 p.m. is where it starts to feel like a comedy of errors.”

Kubly fired back, telling Shelton he needed to “work in an operational department for a bit.”

Asked about the emails on Friday, Kubly said he stood by the statement that he was “pleased” with how his department responded that day. However, he acknowledged that things could be done better.

“I think that the folks that were in the field making the decisions that they were making with the information that they had followed their training,” he said. “And I think in any situation you want to go back and you want to find opportunities to do things better.

“I think there’s things that went well, and I think it’s undeniable that there are things we could do to improve.”

As part of the after-action report, the city outlined ways to improve its response to such accidents in the future. One of the biggest changes would be moving to a system that prioritizes traffic over property.

You can read the entire after-action report here.

http://tribkcpq.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/after-action-report-final.pdf

In a statement, Mayor Ed Murray said recommendations outlined in the report are a start.

“The impacts of traffic accidents on our most crowded roadways ripple throughout the entire system,” he said. “While we must always prioritize life safety, we need to clear blocking accidents as quickly as possible to keep our city moving. I expect more detailed recommendations from SPD and SDOT about how we will improve our response protocols.”