SHINE — A series of six-hour night closures of the Hood Canal Bridge is tentatively scheduled to start Sunday.
The closures are dependent on weather and are expected to start at 11 p.m. from Sunday through Wednesday, April 5, depending upon weather.
The bridge will remain closed until 5 a.m. each following day, the state Department of Transportation said in a news release.
Delivery of the Peninsula Daily News will be delayed from Monday through Thursday because of the overnight closures of the Hood Canal Bridge.
The PDN is printed in Everett, and the closure will mean the delivery truck must travel an additional 110 miles to get the newspaper from the press to the North Olympic Peninsula.
The overnight closures are being resumed to allow crews to continue working on a project to replace or rebuild the mechanical devices that open and close the bridge, replace the hydraulic hoses and fluid, and adjust the wheels that allow portions of the bridge to move.
The $5.2 million maintenance project — which was awarded to Northbank Civil and Marine Inc. in October — is expected to be completed this fall.
To rebuild and replace internal mechanics of the bridge’s drawspan, crews need to take precise measurements of those systems, according to Transportation.
Even slight winds or tides could adversely affect their ability to take those measurements, and the work and accompanying bridge closures could be postponed.
Given the uncertainty the weather poses to the closure schedule, Transportation staff will make every effort to announce the availability of the bridge to vehicles.
Drivers are encouraged to sign up to receive automated messages for the most accurate bridge information, and they can also visit the project webpage or Transportation’s Hood Canal Bridge area webpage at www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/hoodcanal.
Drivers can receive up-to-date Hood Canal Bridge information through DOT emails, Twitter or text messages. To subscribe to receive text messages, send a text message to 468311 with the words: wsdot hood. To unsubscribe, send a text message to the same number with the words: wsdot stop.
