Boom On Delivery Truck Crashes Into Skywalk No One Injured; Walkway Between Ridpath And Its Motor Inn Suffers Only Minor Damage

Dale Powers forgot to lower the boom on his flatbed delivery truck Thursday. Big mistake.

Powers had just dropped off a load of pipe on West First Avenue and was headed back to his company, Western Concrete, when his truck came to an grinding halt.

The skyward-pointing boom smashed into the side of the skywalk connecting the Ridpath Hotel with its motor inn on West First.

“I feel really stupid,” Powers said as police investigated the accident.

No citation was issued at the scene.

One woman who was on the skywalk when the collision occurred said the walkway lurched upward several inches and then shook from side to side.

“It was a really loud bang. It was like a concussion,” the woman said.

No one was hurt, and the skywalk remained in place.

The boom cracked the outer wall of the skywalk and bent a decorative metal strip along the side.

It was not clear whether the impact caused structural damage.

Ridpath managers closed the skywalk to pedestrians after the accident, and were planning to have engineers evaluate its safety before reopening it.

A steel platform holding the boom on the rear of the Freightliner truck was bent backwards at a 45-degree angle. Prior to the accident, it was level with the flatbed.

Powers said he had delivered pipe to a construction site near First and Post, and was headed east.

The pipe was left at a cleanup project for fuel oil that leaked into the ground south of the Davenport Hotel from the old Washington Water Power Co. steam plant, Powers said.

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