PORT ANGELES — City Council members have expressed little support for building suicide-prevention railings on the Eighth Street bridges.
They discussed raising the height of the railings on the spans across Tumwater and Valley Creek gorges at a work session devoted to the topic last week.
“There’s really no money to do that,” Mayor Dan Di Guilio said Wednesday, the morning after the hourlong meeting.
The bridges, which are about 100 feet tall at their highest points, have 4-foot, 6-inch railings.
Craig Fulton, city public works and utilities director, told council members that a 5-foot curved chain-link railing would cost about $825,000 and a 5-foot, 7-inch barrier would cost $1.2 million.
Dr. Joshua Jones, Peninsula Behavioral Health medical director, said at the meeting that Clallam County now has the second-highest rate of suicides in the state, after Okanogan. The two counties switch back and forth as having the highest number, he added.
Di Guilio said Wednesday he would explore the possibility of putting up signs with suicide hotline phone numbers on the two spans or installing an emergency telephone to help deter people contemplating a plunge off the bridges.
The session was called in the wake of the death of Stephanie Diane Caldwell, 21, of Port Angeles, the third person to jump from the bridges since they were replaced in 2009.
A man bicycling over the Eighth Street bridge that spans Valley Creek told police he saw Caldwell jump over the side railing on the northwest side of the span at about 10:15 a.m. Oct. 11, according to a police report.
Between 2009 — when the replacements for spans built in 1936 were opened — and mid-October, police have prevented 19 people from jumping, Police Chief Terry Gallagher said in an earlier interview.
A 5-foot, 7-inch railing was considered when the bridges were built, but the option was rejected because of the cost, which would not have been covered by state funding.
“Thus, city general funds would be required,” Fulton said in a memo to the council.
The meeting was attended by Peninsula Behavioral Health Executive Director Peter Casey, Medical Director Joshua Jones and Clinical Director Wendy Sisk.
Sisk said an average of 16 or 17 suicides a year occur in Clallam County.
The group at highest risk is men older than 60, followed by men ages 16 to 24.
The most common means of suicide are by firearms and overdosing on drugs, Sisk said.
“We hear a lot of threats of jumping off the bridge,” she said.
Bridge suicides commonly occur among young adults from their upper teens to early 20s, Sisk said.
A suicide-prevention railing “might have some impact on a very small number of people,” she said.
Jones said there is not a lot of data to show whether railings are an effective deterrent.
“If you choose fencing, it probably will save a life or two or three and may be worth it,” Jones said.
“I certainly can think of other ways the money can be spent.”
Depression is the most common mental disorder that leads to suicide, he said.
Casey said it’s difficult to get older adults to seek help with mental health issues and added that outreach programs in schools would be worthwhile.
“Any [suicide]-prevention education program that can be supported to call attention to this would probably be helpful,” he said.
Sisk said there are more than 100 bridges in Clallam County, but the Eighth Street bridges are unique.
Jumping off one of the Eighth Street bridges “is a thing people say when they are in distress,” she said.
“It’s something we hear often.
“It becomes a thing to talk about, that people fantasize about in varying degrees.
“I can’t think of an instance to where they are referring to other bridges.
“It’s like the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Councilman Dan Gase said there are 30,000 suicides nationwide annually, 1.7 percent of which are committed by jumping off high objects.
He said spending money on a suicide-prevention railing would require cutting money elsewhere in the city budget.
“While this is an extremely difficult topic, I would not be able to support at all proceeding down that path,” Gase said.
He said he preferred putting money into mental health programs.
Councilman Lee Whetham said a railing would slow down or deter jumpers, calling plunging from a bridge an impulsive act.
Less than 5 percent of people who try and fail to commit suicide try again, Whetham said.
“I’m afraid of putting money solely into the mental health system, and yet from our own experts, we still have a candle to a moth on Eight Street,” he added.
“I don’t think we are going to stop everyone from going over the side, even with the railing.
“The fact of the matter is, we are going to slow them down or severely impact the number of people who do decide to go over the side.
“We need to do something more than what is happening to date.”
But Deputy Mayor Patrick Downie called for a more collaborative approach with mental health professionals.
“A longer-term view clearly has benefits,” he said.
Councilwoman Sissi Bruch said people will find a different way to commit suicide if the bridges have railings.
Councilwoman Cherie Kidd was absent.
Byron Olson, the city’s chief financial officer, said if higher railings were funded, it should be financed over a period of several years.
The Eighth Street bridges originally were built without suicide barriers. The city added 7-foot, 9-inch barriers to the span’s central areas in 1959.
The cost of replacement was $24.6 million.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
