On January 11, 2019 at 10:00PM the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle closed forever. Many people took a ceremonious last trip to bid farewell or express their regrets. The King County Air Support helicopter with their rather surreal “night vision” film camera was there to document the event which ended up lasting a few more hours than anticipated.
While the party was taking place on the upper deck of the viaduct, I was traveling south on the crowded lower level. Here are a few shots taken from my car:
In 2007 plans were made to replace the viaduct with a deep tunnel for the purpose of safety. I will reserve my nightmare vision from then (shared by most people in West Seattle, Burien, and all other points south and west of the downtown area) of the traffic problems it would cause by replacing a 3 lane thoroughfare with on and off ramps by 2 lanes with no on or off ramps, buried at one point more than 200 feet below the surface. Suffice it to say, I agreed with “The Stranger” article from that vintage entitled “Seattle you are about to F… Yourself” and was of the opinion that the “cut and cover” solution (burying the road for one direction of traffic 20′ below the surface and locating the lanes for the other direction of traffic on the surface) was by far the most prudent and cost-effective solution.
Instead of dwelling on this, I will recount my memorable and rather unusual and synchronous experiences related to the viaduct.
My story begins on October 17, 1989, the day of the Loma Prieta (or as others call it, the World Series) earthquake in San Francisco. I was flying from Seattle to LA listening to “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum on the inboard ear phones and the gentleman seated next to me, an avid baseball fan, was chattering constantly about baseball trivia. As we approached San Francisco, he became more excited, looked at his watch and declared it was 5:04 PM – time for the World Series to begin. At the same time, I was trying to spot the downtown buildings and landmarks that the pilot was describing over the intercom. The pilot then pointed out how the Sacramento River flows into the bay and began talking about songs that were written about San Francisco. It was as if he had entered a strange stream of consciousness — unlike anything I had ever experienced by a pilot in the past. He then became very quiet, tipped the wings of the 727 vertically, so everyone could see the city, and said, “I’ve never seen it look quite like this.” I had made this trip many times in the past and agreed with him. All the buildings were different shades of metallic gold and the city had an eerie glow around it, and even in retrospect – it was one of the strangest things I’ve seen.
As we approached LA, we were diverted to Burbank due to LAX being maxed out with traffic, and sat on the runway in Burbank for over four hours waiting for a gate. It was unusually hot, we had run out of fuel, food, and drinks and we did not know why we were in Burbank. Someone on the plane had an early cell phone, called a friend and found out about the earthquake. Word spread on the plane like wildfire. Early reports indicated the damage was much worse than it actually was, and you can imagine how the rumors grew even more as they spread through a plane full of hot, tired, hungry, confused passengers. We heard the whole city of San Francisco was on fire, and the Oakland Bridge had collapsed and people were drowning. We also heard the Nimitz freeway had pan-caked, trapping and killing many rush hour passengers. Some of the passengers on the plane had relatives in San Francisco and began to panic. A few threatened to jump out onto the runway. Police officers were boarded to escort those lucky few off the plane. It was 2AM before I wearily made it to my destination.
Looking back, besides the way the city of San Francisco seemed to glow so eerily as seen from the air, the other image that stuck with me was the tragic sight of the collapsed Nimitz freeway that I later saw on TV. It was particularly poignant because I travelled Seattle’s Alaskan Viaduct daily and both freeways were of the same vintage and design. My friends heard me say several times in the following years, “If we ever have a bad earthquake in Seattle, I hope I’m not on the Alaskan Viaduct.”
By now, you can probably guess where this story is going. On Feb. 28, 2001, I was headed North on Hwy. 99 (on the Alaskan Viaduct) towards downtown Seattle. About 8 blocks south of the Seneca off-ramp, the left rear of my car dropped about a foot and I heard a loud clang of metal on metal. Flat tire was my first thought.
Up to that point, I had only had two flat tires in my life and one of them had been on the viaduct, how could this happen to me twice!! Then the right rear slammed down equally as hard. Oh no – two flat tires – I must have driven over a whole pile of nails! Then the rear end of the car began to oscillate violently. The rear axel! That must be it. Somehow I must have broken my rear axel! I know I must sound clueless, but this all happened in about six seconds. As I was struggling to keep the car in the lane, the thought of “earthquake” did cross my mind, but I was listening to the garden show on NPR where everyone seemed to be acting as “cool as cucumbers”. I was approaching the Seneca off-ramp and decided it would be best to get off the viaduct. As I coasted down the ramp, and watched people pouring out of office buildings on First Avenue, I heard NPR’s Steve Scher calmly remark, “All right I guess we call that an earthquake.” And with the same degree of calmness, “Wow, that’s a serious earthquake.” At that point, I limped away in my ’93 Saab, glad that the only damage I had incurred was broken rear shocks to my car.
But this is not quite the end of my story. At 10:00 AM on February 28, 2011, the ten year anniversary of the Nisqually earthquake, I left my home in Burien and headed North on 509 and then 99 for downtown Seattle, still driving my ’93 Saab and still listening to Steve Scher on KUOW. He was talking about the earthquake of 10 years prior and memories of my experiences started flooding back. I vividly remembered the violent trip I had experienced that morning and how strange it had been that I was in the very place I had so many times declared I never wanted to be during an earthquake. I thought it was nice Steve was dedicating a whole show to the Nisqually earthquake and found the discussion with Bill Steele, a UW seismologist, very interesting. Then Steve decided to play the actual KUOW radio broadcast of his show during the 2001 earthquake. And if you haven’t already guessed where fate had taken me ………………..yes, I found myself in the exact same spot on the Alaskan viaduct, 8 blocks south of the Seneca off-ramp!
Soon after the Viaduct Farewell Party, demolition of the Alaskan viaduct began. Here is a little glimpse of that.
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