Two Inches of Clearance: How I‑5's Span Dropped Into the River

Emergencies and Natural Disasters · Sep 13, 2026 · 19m

Two Inches of Clearance: How I‑5's Span Dropped Into the River

Seventy-one thousand daily commuters crossed a fracture-critical bridge where an unmarked outer lane offered only 14 feet 7 inches of clearance - and a truck two inches over its permit set into motion a collapse that dropped a 160-foot steel span into the Skagit River. How did a routine permit, decades of inspection reports, and a single lane choice lead to three cars plunging into the water?

In this episode, we lay out the sequence of facts from the May 23, 2013 evening collapse, the bridge’s design vulnerabilities, the truck’s…