Study into HRBT flooding prompts monitoring changes

RICHMOND

When flooding shut down the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on July 2, the caretakers of local tunnels conducted fewer inspections and placed less emphasis on maintenance than their counterparts in other states, a report released Wednesday concluded.

The study is the result of an investigation by a panel of outside experts into the flooding, which went undetected for about nine hours, closing the tunnel and snarling traffic throughout the region.

While a burst water main was the source of the flooding, Virginia Department of Transportation officials said human errors led to the slow response. They said they've adopted several of the report's recommendations in an effort to prevent future mistakes.

Problems at the HRBT began when a water pipe burst on the night of July 1. Over several hours, more than a million gallons of water filled a section of a 7-foot-high chamber beneath the roadway. As rush-hour traffic was building the next morning, water was detected at the lowest point of the westbound traffic lane. Eleven minutes later, traffic stopped.

VDOT Commissioner David Ekern said if the pipe burst were to happen today, new detection equipment and better procedures for the staff would prevent a problem from being ignored.

Among the changes: Shift supervisors are now required to walk through the structures twice each shift to check with "human eyes" rather than rely solely on sensors, he said. The state will periodically hire independent inspectors to examine tunnel systems.

Officials also plan to spend nearly $50 million through 2012 to make improvements at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, $8 million each at the Monitor-Merrimac and Midtown tunnels, and $5 million at the Downtown Tunnel. Already this year, they have moved forward with plans to install new water-flow sensors that can alert staff to water-main breaks.

On tap for next year are closed-circuit television cameras to be placed inside the tunnels to help staff better monitor conditions.

However, they are still wrestling with whether to have maintenance workers stationed in tunnels round-the-clock, which was a deficiency identified in the panel's report.

"We haven't made that conclusion yet," said Dennis Heuer, VDOT's Hampton Roads district administrator. "We have monetary constraints. We have people constraints."

Under current practices, technicians are on call but not present in tunnels at all hours.

All of the changes since July, Ekern hopes, will "translate directly into driver confidence, community confidence."

"I've got a high degree of confidence in my management staff and in the workers that are there every day doing the job," he said. "They're doing the best they can with the tools they got."

The review panel was appointed by Ekern in the wake of public outcry over the flooding. Among its 11 members are state officials and tunnel operators from Maryland and New York.

Seven VDOT employees have been disciplined as a result of the flooding, said state officials, who have declined to discuss what happened to them. At least one employee has been fired, according to a source close to VDOT.

Fixing the bridge-tunnels wasn't the only topic discussed at Wednesday's Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting.

Members were told that nearly $894 million more will need to be cut out of the state's six-year road-building program because of declining revenues, much of which come from taxes on gasoline and automobile sales.

The cuts to be approved this morning are in addition to $3.7 billion in earlier reductions.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com

Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com