Hood Canal Bridge reopens after emergency closure

The Hood Canal Bridge, connecting the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas via Highway 104, reopened to car traffic Monday night after a mechanical failure shuttered the critical link for hours, the state Department of Transportation reported Monday.

The malfunction had left the bridge stuck in the open position for a boat to motor through at 1 p.m. Monday, blocking all vehicles. Crews, with the help of a tugboat, then worked into Monday night to allow traffic to resume, according to the transportation department.

It was unclear if the mechanical failure had been permanently fixed.

Any closure of the bridge is a major headache for those who use it to travel across Hood Canal. There is no convenient alternative beyond driving hours to the south around the bottom of the canal, which is technically a fjord. That’s a detour of about 110 miles.

The other alternative is to take a ferry from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island, but that is also a long, expensive detour of several hours and usually requires a reservation in advance.

The Olympic Peninsula is a major tourist destination in the summer, particularly for visitors coming from the east in search of Olympic Mountain hikes, coastal treks or oysters. Any extended closure would bring with it a major financial hit for businesses in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and towns farther west.

The Hood Canal Bridge opened in 1961 and is the world’s third-largest floating bridge.

It has had its share of mishaps through the years, most notably when it sank in 1979. The bridge was totaled and didn’t reopen until 1982.

Maintaining the bridge’s complicated mechanisms in a salty, windy environment is a challenge. The bridge has closed for extensive periods in the past, including for a major renovation in the late 2000s. To help travelers during that closure, the state added a small foot ferry departing from Lofall in Kitsap County, reviving a ferry route that ran in the 1950s.