Companies, drivers feel sting of I-5 closure

OLYMPIA – With Christmas just weeks away, UPS drivers are back on the streets in southwest Washington as the floodwaters from a deadly storm begin to recede.

But trucking companies and the businesses that rely on their deliveries were anxiously awaiting the reopening of the state’s main artery, Interstate 5, which has been closed since Monday in the Centralia area south of here. North-south truckers have faced a detour route of 150 miles through Yakima on the east side of the Cascades.

State Transportation Department officials said the freeway opened to one-lane traffic in each direction Thursday night.

Dealing with the blockage – and detour – has been tricky.

“There is a huge cost when you look at how you have to redo your trucking fleet, to go on alternate routes, to make sure we can get product to the stores,” Cherie Myers, Northwest regional spokeswoman for Safeway grocery stores, said Thursday.

She said Safeway is not having trouble getting products from its Auburn distribution center to its stores, including those in the hard-hit areas. The problem is getting products south of the state to the distribution center.

State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said 10,000 trucks and 44,000 passenger vehicles use I-5 through the region every day, and delay costs for truckers alone are about $4 million each day that vital link is out of commission. The total cost to businesses and the state economy as a whole is not yet known, though Gov. Chris Gregoire has said that total damage from the storm could reach the billions.

In Centralia, UPS driver Dave Morgan was back to work on Wednesday, making deliveries on a street lined with ruined carpets, soaked mattresses and assorted debris being chucked out of homes.

Driving through water that sometimes went up to the second step of his high truck, Morgan said it was important to try to bring some normality back to the neighborhoods that have been hardest hit.

“People are surprised to see me,” he said.

Dan Gatchet, president of Seattle-based West Coast Trucking, said the road closure and detours have been costing his company up to $6,000 a day. He said whereas one driver would make a Seattle to Portland delivery and return in one day, now that driver has to spend the night in Oregon, and another driver has to be sent out to make the same run the next day.

“Productivity is cut in half,” he said.