‘We could become a ghost town’: Bridge closure devastates Pierce Co. businesses

Summer has been hot, and so were the sales.

As July rolled into August, Mt. Rainier Creamery in Buckley was feeling optimistic. A year into running this unique dairy drive-thru and local meat market that doubles as a coffee and soft-serve shop, owners Ryan and Haylee Mensonides tallied their best month yet.

Those numbers have cratered nearly 50% since Aug. 18, when a truck rammed into the White River Bridge. The Washington State Department of Transportation immediately closed the passageway, thereby shutting off Buckley in Pierce County to Enumclaw in King – and by extension, the most straightforward route between Pierce County and part of Mount Rainier National Park and the agricultural hub of Yakima Valley.

No injuries were reported, but residents and businesses of two small cities that rely intensely on each other and this vital throughway are devastated by the closure.

The detour via Route 167 and 164 through Auburn adds around 45 minutes, according to WSDOT, and there is no clear timeline for repair. But to think “it’s just a traffic delay,” said Mensonides, is misguided. “For us it really is catastrophic.”

He likened the situation to the cult-favorite Disney-Pixar film, “Cars,” in which the fictional Route 66 town of Radiator Springs loses passersby – and most of its luster – to the sleek new interstate.

“Basically you’ve just taken all of our traffic, and it’s gonna kill us slowly,” Mensonides told The News Tribune in a phone interview. ‘It’s a nightmare’

As they were building out the shop at 287 Route 410, across from Wally’s Drive-In, they completed a traffic study. Up to 25,000 cars drive this road a day and around 150,000 every month, they learned.

“You can’t have 25,000 cars go by a day and have that not be devastating,” said Mensonsides.

With the bridge out, the “logistics are horrible,” he explained. The drive between their dairy farm in Enumclaw and the production facility in Buckley is, “as the crow flies, a half a mile away, but now I have to drive an hour and 20 minutes to get my products to the store.”

With assistance from the Washington Farmland Trust, they have also preserved land in Graham, where they now keep their young stock. They usually make a couple of trips to and fro each week – usually a 45-minute drive that has doubled since the bridge closed, making for three hours roundtrip.

They are trying to adjust their schedule to plan for once-a-week trips, but Mensonides said: “It’s an operating farm, so if something goes wrong, I have to go down there.”

“It’s a nightmare.” ‘It’s kind of like chess vs. checkers’

Kimarie Johnson, operating manager at Wally’s Drive-In, told The News Tribune their sales have been down 40% since the bridge closure.

“We’ve had to cut our staff by half,” Johnson said. “We don’t have customers – you can’t have people here. We can’t pay them unless we’re bringing revenue in.”

Johnson said the staff are still employed, but have had their hours cut drastically. Just down the road, grocery store Rainier Fresh has also had to cut its staff.

“All nine of my employees have suffered some kind of hourly reduction, and I’m working a lot more so that way, we can make sure we survive whatever else is coming our way,” said Patrick Brown, owner and general manager of Rainier Fresh.

Brown said the staff cuts are because of the store losing many of its Enumclaw customers, and because of the uncertainty around the bridge closure.

“Some of the staff reductions have been if the bridge is down for two years. If it’s going to be up in six weeks and I knew it, I would just eat the costs and keep my people employed,” Brown said. “But we don’t know that right now and from the sound of it, it looks like it’s going to be a prolonged situation.”

Many of the store’s vendors used to drop by twice a week, but now only come once a week, Brown said. The store is also continuing its delivery service, with drivers taking the long way through Auburn to deliver product to Enumclaw customers.

“An issue like this is really damaging – it’s not a one-dimensional problem, it’s kind of like chess vs. checkers,” Brown said. “[But] we’re going to persevere and survive.” ‘Everything just feels impossible’

Venise Cunningham lives in Buckley. Her sister, Belinda Kelly, lives in Enumclaw. Together, the two own the Simple Goodness Soda Shop in Wilkeson. The sisters used to meet multiple times a week, Cunningham said, but have now had to take Zoom calls and coordinate carpools.

The only saving grace for commuters has been the Foothills Bridge, which incidentally was completed last November. In addition to extending the walking and biking trail from Pierce to King counties, the design purposely allowed for it to be used as an emergency route.

For now, it’s still restricted to pedestrians, cyclists and emergency vehicles. Cunningham has had to use the Foothills Bridge to commute to work.

“I had a work thing that was up north, my commute going all the way around would have added an hour, [so I] walked across the bridge and carpooled with Belinda. We didn’t get done until 10 p.m.,” Cunningham said. “The bridge was busy, there were at least 10 people walking on the bridge at 10 p.m. in the pitch black.”

Since then, crews have added temporary lighting on the pedestrian bridge, Cunningham said.

The sisters have also had to use the Foothills Bridge to help their manager, who lives in Enumclaw, get to her shifts. Cunningham said the manager has been with the shop for five years “and works 80% of our shifts.”

“She will ride her bike or park as close as she can to the bridge, walk over the bridge, I will pick her up on the Buckley side,” Cunningham said. “That is what everyone is doing and the reality is, normally her commute is eight minutes.”

The Simple Goodness Soda Shop has already been struggling since WSDOT permanently closed the Carbon River Fairfax Bridge in April. The 103-year-old, single-lane bridge was deteriorating, and it was the only way for the public to access key areas of Mount Rainier National Park such as Mowich Lake, Tolmie Peak and Spray Park from state Route 165.

Businesses in Wilkeson, including Simple Goodness, relied on the tourist traffic to Mount Rainier every summer. Now, Cunningham said, sales are down by 40%.

“We’re just now hitting, kind of, worst-case scenario and we have now done a month of worst-case scenario and it’s just as bad as we thought it would be,” Cunningham said.

Now that the store has been doubly hit with the White River Bridge closure, the sisters are seeing their local clientele decrease.

“When the Fairfax Bridge went down, we lost all of our tourist traffic – people from Seattle, Tacoma, Federal Way, from other countries – aren’t coming through Wilkeson. So naturally, we were like, ‘OK, well, in order to survive, we need to lean on our local communities,’” Cunningham said. “Our local community – Bonney Lake, Buckley, Enumclaw. Now we do not have tourist traffic [and] we don’t have our Enumclaw traffic either.”

Cunningham said the sisters made the choice to keep the shop open this season despite the Fairfax Bridge closure because they needed the cash flow. Now, there’s even more uncertainty.

“We still have to pay our utilities, pay all of the bills that are constant, so we had committed to staying open through our season – the end of December,” Cunningham said. “Now, everything just feels impossible.” ‘I feel we could become a ghost town’

WSDOT announced Aug. 27 that they may be able to perform a temporary fix that will allow one lane of the bridge with alternating traffic to reopen by the end of September. Gov. Bob Ferguson declared an emergency for the bridge closure on Aug. 27.

Mensonides said the uncertainty is one of the worst parts about the bridge closure.

“We keep hearing that they’re still assessing the damage,” said Mensonides. “Supposedly they’re going to be able to brace it. They’ve ordered the steel – I guess that’s something, but how long is that gonna take? Are we fast-tracking it? Where is it coming from?”

He said he has talked with staff in the offices of Reps. Kim Schrier (D-8) and Dan Newhouse (R-4), whose districts connect via Route 410. Enumclaw city councilman Anthony Wright has been sharing regular updates on an Enumclaw community Facebook page, which Mensonides said have been invaluable.

Johnson told The News Tribune that the community is trying to come together, but the future is still up in the air.

“I have seen people say they will have to get a different job because the extra amount of travel they have to get to either Enumclaw to Buckley or Buckley to Enumclaw,” Johnson said. “Because they’re already living paycheck to paycheck, it is extra daycare or time. So, it’s scary because I feel like we could become a ghost town.”