GREEN RIVER – On Friday, February 14 Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Troopers, Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) personnel and multiple local agencies responded to a multi-vehicle crash in the westbound Green River Tunnel on Interstate 80. 

“The crash occurred at 11:37 a.m. February 14 at mile marker 90.2 westbound on I-80. At this time, WHP Troopers have confirmed two fatalities in the crash and law enforcement will continue investigations. Additional details on injuries and fatalities will be released once available. The scene has been contained and the tunnel has been evacuated,” the first of many WYDOT press releases explained. 

According to the first release, the eastbound lanes of the tunnel were being used for first responder staging and traffic was rerouted around the crash on Friday at 4:50 p.m. Westbound traffic was diverted at mile marker 91 and eastbound traffic was diverted at mile marker 89 through Green River. WYDOT also explained geologists and bridge engineers were headed to the location to assess the tunnel infrastructure. 

On Saturday, February 15 Governor Mark Gordon attended the Sweetwater County/State of Wyoming Press Conference on the Green River Tunnel response. 

“Thank you for being here today. I think there are people joining us online as well. I’m Governor Mark Gordon and I just wanted to kick this off and first off acknowledge what a devastating incident we had yesterday. Hopefully we can provide information today that will be of some help,” Gordon said. “This will take some time to be able to resolve and I think setting expectations hopefully we get the right information to you today.”

Gordon explained he had been in touch with US Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem and he noted she had been attentive to the situation. Gordon also said more information would be provided on the state and local groups who are working together on the incident during the conference held Saturday afternoon. Gordon commended local law enforcement, highway patrol and the local fire department.

“This has been a very tough time for your folks. I know the circumstances were really tough and did not allow for as much as everybody wanted to do,” Gordon said. “I am particularly sad that we have a couple of fatalities at least so far.”

WYDOT Director, Darin Westby, provided additional information and echoed Gordon’s thoughts and prayers to area first responders and the accident victims and their families. Westby thanked the Green River Sheriff’s Department for coordinating efforts with highway patrol noting the support has been coming in from state, local and federal resources. 

“As soon as we heard, we started gathering our teams together to make sure that we had the appropriate personnel on-site as quick as possible. Obviously, the highway patrol got dispatched. They were there and dispatching a command center,” Westby stated. 

Westby noted it’s the Wyoming way of life to rally around a crisis and provide support any way possible, echoing the governor. 

Major James Thomas with the Wyoming Highway Patrol provided an update from the law enforcement side of the accident. Thomas gave background information on the accident noting the first call came in around 11:38 a.m. Friday, February 14 notifying emergency personnel of a crash in the westbound lane of I80.

“Initial response – once we came on scene there, we came across several vehicles involved in that westbound lane along with an active fire, which prevented some of the life-saving measures there that we could do at that time until fire conditions could improve,” Thomas said. 

Thomas also thanked the agencies who responded noting the incident could not have been managed without teamwork. Thomas explained it was a collective response trying to initiate life-saving measures, move people to safety and get the highway shut down, which was the first priority. 

“Then it became the firefighting effort which was an extended operation. That operation went well into the evening,” Thomas said. “Working with the fire department, we started our investigation on the outside of that western side of the tunnel. When conditions can improve and we removed the victims from the scene there, once those were going on the fire department started working on the west side of the tunnel. Then got as far as they could and relocated to the eastern side of the tunnel to work inside and try to put out those fires.”

Thomas thanked Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation for their assistance in the incident. 

“They’re assisting with some of our evidence collection and some mapping and stuff like that,” Thomas said. 

According to Thomas, even after the fires had been put out, conditions were still not safe for investigators and responders to go inside the tunnel due to structural concerns and air quality. Thomas noted there was still a level of unknown concerning the contaminants or hazards which still existed in the tunnel. Thomas also explained they had been contacted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who will be conducting a parallel investigation along with the highway patrol. Thomas explained a meeting is being scheduled. 

“This morning (Saturday), we started to be able to at least get into the tunnel to see what those circumstances were. We still have some hazards that still remain in there so that will be a long process as far as working through that investigation,” Thomas said. “As we go through there, our plan of action, we’ll start with our evidence documentation, mapping the scene and then once we start being able to pull vehicles out and work our way into so, from west to east, documenting that evidence. Then also working alongside with the Sweetwater coroner in those circumstances and then also the Sweetwater County Attorney’s office so we definitely appreciate their involvement as well.”

Thomas noted the US Department of Transportation was on scene as of Saturday afternoon and they assisted investigators and commercial carrier inspectors with documentation and evidence collection regarding the commercial vehicles involved. Thomas expressed due to the magnitude of the incident; the investigation would take time before a good understanding of what happened could be determined. 

WYDOT District Three Engineer John Eddins echoed the accolades given to area first responders and the community. They also explained traffic had been rerouted due to the accident through Green River on Flaming Gorge Way. Also acknowledged was the impact the rerouting had placed on the community. 

“With that said, we’re working diligently on the construction and maintenance side to get a mile worth of concrete barrier rounded up to get it place and so that we can safely run traffic head-to-head on the eastbound lane and though the eastbound lane tunnels,” Eddines said. “That’s not a perfect solution. When you look at the width of those tunnels, we’re going to be really down to an effective lane width of about 10 ½ – 11 feet. So, with that said, anything over width or over height is going to have to be – we’re going to have to restrict that so those oversized loads.”

According to the engineer, WYDOT feels the oversized load reroute is a hardship and the department knows traffic cannot be on Flaming Gorge Way indefinitely. It was noted the goal was to continue traffic on Flaming Gorge Way for two or three days until the eastbound tunnel was able to safely run head-to-head traffic. WYDOT noted there were no structural issues, including the utility vaults, in the eastbound tunnel. WYDOT also explained the department’s public information officer was working with other departments to put out cojoined releases providing updates. 

Randy Ringstmeyer, bridge and tunnel structural inspector for the department explained the initial assessment of the eastbound tunnel. 

“We came last night (Friday) and we did a full assessment of the eastbound lane tunnel just to make sure it’d be safe to carry traffic if needed,” Ringstmeyer said. “We didn’t see any anomalies. There’s no issues. Last night, we were unable to get into the westbound lane tunnel. There was a lot of smoke and other issues. We weren’t able to get in there.”

According to Ringstmeyer, on Saturday morning, engineers and inspectors were able to gain access to part of the westbound lane tunnel. 

“This morning, we were able to get in – get partway in – and we noticed there was extensive fire damage in about the middle third of the tunnel,” Ringstmeyer said. “I want to say that the rock itself, there’s no issues with the integrity of the rock so we’re not expecting the mountain to collapse, the tunnel to collapse, that’s not going to happen. It’s safe there. The issue is that the inside of the tunnel is lined with concrete and the fire has damaged some of that tunnel liner. We’re actively seeing some loose concrete coming down now that the first responders are having to avoid some of those areas.

Ringstmeyer feels responders will be seeing more concrete coming down in the tunnel because the fire damaged the outside of the concrete and he noted there was no exposed rebar. 

“We’re seeing a lot of debris on the ground. Inside, the liner, the liner is about one and a half to three inches thick, inside the liner, there’s some steel ribs and at some point, we’re hoping to get some help from our photos and surveys group and be able to use some lidar and be able to look at the geometry, looking for any geometry anomalies. We don’t want to see any sagging,” Ringstmeyer said. “We do not see that visually. As of now, there’s enough wreckage inside the tunnel where we were not able to get within arm’s reach. We’re going to have to do a follow-up inspection once the wreckage is removed, use a lift truck and basically every square foot of inside that tunnel liner needs to be assessed. At some point, we need to do some data collection and see how much of that liner need to be repaired or replaced.”

Ringstmeyer noted the damage was extensive, including damage to the lighting system. He explained the lighting system was help up to the tunnel liner with friction anchors. The damaged concrete also could affect the integrity of the anchors causing them to potentially pull out. 

“Again, it’s going to be a long process. We’re going to have to probably return in the next few days and continue looking at this. We have some contacts for some folks that might be able to help us, especially on the fire assessment, the damage to the concrete,” Ringstmeyer said. 

Gordon indicated he had directed all of the resources available in the state to help with the tunnels and according to Gordon, communication is monumental in this incident. 

“I think it’s also important to know that communication is incredibly critical here and we are working very hard to make sure that the feds, state and the local all have the same information so that there is a clear lien of communication,” Gordon said. “Incidents like this can easily led to a lot of rabbit trails or false comments or discussion points. The last thing I’d like to say is knowing Flaming Gorge Way is going to have traffic that it’s probably not designed for. There’s a lot of roads in Wyoming that now are seeing traffic that is heavier than what any of these roads were designed for. There’s infrastructure underneath that is old. It is important that we recognize that MRG is something that can be available for emergency situations and we will continue to look at that [and] make sure that the legislature has appropriately funded that,” Gordon concluded. 

Sweetwater County Sheriff, John Grossnickle, also echoed many thanks to the first responders. 

“Everybody says that we put on this uniform, we know we’re signing up to do – we don’t sign up to do this, we sign up to serve. We never know what we’re going to see when we go into these situations so thanks [to] all the men and women on the ground, firefighters, EMS, law enforcement. More importantly, thank you to our community partners and citizens here in Sweetwater County,” Grossnickle said. “The outpouring has been incredible.”

Grossnickle explained the community has been dropping off donations for the emergency crews during the incident and others helped get supplies where they were needed most, noting it was an example of Wyoming at its finest. 

The Saturday press conference was wrapped up with a question-and-answer segment and during which, a reporter, David Martin, from Sweetwater Now, asked the panel if criminal charges were being sought since WHP had mentioned the Sweetwater County Attorney was involved in the investigation. 

“In any circumstances like this, what we normally do is we brief the county attorney on the incident and have them respond to the scene. [The] county attorney in that case would come out and do just to a quick walk-through to get eyes on to put things into better perspective. So, if criminal charges should come from this, they have a little bit better understanding of what that scene looks like and can correlate that into the reports and everything as far as charging documents. It just helps give the county attorney’s office a better perspective,” Thomas responded. 

Another journalist asked the panel what the media could do to help keep the misnomers at bay to which Thomas responded there had been social media posts implying the tunnel was going to collapse. 

“We’ve confirmed that that’s not the case,” Eddins said. 

The panel further indicated had the accident occurred outside of the tunnel, the response would have been different, noting the investigation process would have gone much quicker. Gordon also noted it is important for people to drive carefully in the winter especially during bad conditions. WHP stated although crashes happen frequently in the tunnels, this incident has been unique as far as significance. Eddins noted the Department of Transportation would be spending a week thoroughly investigate the incident with the goal to make recommendation to improve the portion of the interstate. Another reporter mentioned the winter maintenance of the interstate and asked if that would ever be improved. 

“We’ve got a unique in Wyoming where we have cold temperatures and winds and there’s a rule not to put down liquid deicers if the temperature is below 17 or the wind’s above 17 degree so or miles per hour so you got to be careful because in some cases deicers can cause it to get slicker than if you had not deiced,” Eddins said. “I’m not discounting it but it takes some real science to and some real deliberations to use liquid deicers but to your point we will evaluate this incident.”

“I’m definitely going to have a debrief with our maintenance plow operators and refresh their memory on you know, our procedures for attacking ice,” Eddins said. “It’s just not that we probably maybe didn’t do anything wrong but it’s something we’ve got to talk about and have those serious discussions – is there anything we could have done to prevent this?” 

The panel stated a better estimate of time will be provided Sunday.

In the Sunday incident update, WYDOT confirmed two fatalities. 

“WHP has cleared about half of the vehicles involved in the tunnel fire, basically to the middle of the 1,200 ft. tunnel. Last night, four passenger vehicles and nine commercial vehicles were removed from the crash site. In total, WHP believes 26 vehicles were involved in the event: 10 passenger vehicles and 16 commercial vehicles. Six commercial vehicles and two passenger vehicles were completely destroyed by the fire,” the Sunday release explained. “Through an emergency contracting process, the Wyoming Department of Transportation has contracted DeBernardi Construction to begin moving concrete barriers to the crossover lanes in preparation for guiding traffic head-to-head in the eastbound tunnel. WYDOT expects this to be in place by Wednesday.”

On Monday, February 17 afternoon, WYDOT announced WHP had concluded evidence collection at the scene and three fatalities were confirmed.

“The Wyoming Highway Patrol has completed on-scene data collection at the site of the Interstate 80 Green River Tunnel crash, which is located at mile marker 90.2 within the westbound tunnel,” the release said. “Troopers do not expect there to be additional fatalities in the investigation.”

According to the release, work is far from over as WHP Troopers will use evidence collected to digitally reconstruct the crash to determine narratives, cause and other details. 

“Additionally, work preparing the eastbound tunnel for head-to-head traffic is ongoing, with WYDOT’s contractor DeBernardi Construction placing concrete barriers for the transitions into the tunnel and to separate lanes within the tunnel. The speed limit while traffic moves head-to-head will be 35 mph, and delays are expected,” the release said. “WYDOT urges traffic to obey all posted speed limits and traffic control. There will be a 10.5 ft. width and 16 ft. height restriction through the head-to-head lanes in the eastbound tunnel. Oversized vehicles should contact WYDOT’s oversize loads permit office for detours. Info at https://whp.wyo.gov/commercial-carrier/ports-of-entry .” 

Information is expected to be oncoming as the investigation continues and WYDOT urges drivers to take it slow on the current detour through the community of Green River.