Cable barriers raise new concerns in ‘Blood Alley’

By Marcus Hathcock

The Gresham Outlook, Sep 18, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Hoodland firefighters inspect the Cherryville cable barriers last week.

Marcus Hathcock / Pamplin Media Group

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They were installed to prevent devastating head-on collisions, but the new cable barriers along Highway 26 east of Sandy have created new concerns and challenges for local residents, public safety officials and lawmakers.

The questions abound: What can firefighters and paramedics expect when they arrive on the scene? How will the barriers affect response times? Is the 8-foot median even wide enough to prevent a deadly head-on crash?

In an attempt to answer some of those questions, State Rep. Patti Smith and officials from the Oregon Department of Transportation will host a meeting from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, at Sandy City Hall, 39250 Pioneer Blvd.

“It’s important to hear every issue when safety is involved,” Smith said. “I don’t know how we’d address all those issues, but I’m for anything we can do to make the highway safer.”

Smith spearheaded efforts over the past five years to designate “Blood Alley” — the 2-mile stretch of Highway 26 named for its deadly crashes — a safety corridor and have the cables installed.

Those efforts intensified after a head-on collision killed five people in Cherryville this summer, bringing the total number of fatalities in the vicinity to nine since 2000.

The barriers consist of three woven steel cables that carry 7,500 pounds of tension. They sit loosely on steel posts — spaced about 10 feet apart — and are anchored in concrete at each end. When hit by a vehicle, the posts are designed to collapse, allowing the cables to absorb the impact and prevent a centerline crossover. A ricochet effect snaps the vehicle back into its original lane of travel.

Texas-based Trinity Highway Products LLC, the manufacturer of the barriers, claims the system can withstand a hit by an 18,000-pound truck traveling at 50 mph at a 20-degree angle.

The barriers are the first of its kind in Oregon — and among the first in the United States — to be installed. The $1.56-million project placed cables between Weber Road and the west end of Cherryville Drive to the Baty Road/East Terra Fern Drive intersection, and then again from Baty/Terra Fern to the east end of the Cherryville Drive loop.

How to respond to a crash?

Soon after the cables’ installation in late July, Hoodland Fire Chief Mic Eby realized that although they would help prevent crossover crashes, they also would complicate first responders’ jobs.

“The problems they present — although much more minor than dying or killing — give us a whole new set of rules and guidelines,” Eby said. “There are all new challenges we haven’t had before — logistical questions that keep me awake.”

This month, Hoodland firefighters have taken several field trips to Cherryville to examine the barriers and visualize various scenarios that could occur at and around them.

“We learned basically which pieces of equipment fit and where we shouldn’t be parking them,” Eby said. “We’re working things out in our heads, trying to do pre-plans for every kind of scenario we can think of.”

At a meeting of local public safety and ODOT officials Wednesday, Sept. 12, in Sandy, Eby was relieved to learn from the barrier manufacturer that firefighters could safely cut the cables in an emergency or simply lay them on the ground temporarily to allow for more room in the median.

But despite the apparent ease of disabling the high-tension cables, Eby believes that responding to crashes and other calls in the Cherryville corridor will be much more difficult and time-consuming than they were before.

“I foresee us shutting down the highway a whole lot more than before,” Eby said. “A normal hour and a half (operation) is going to take five hours.”

Hoodland firefighters would drive from the east to reach Cherryville. An accident in the westbound lanes would be easily reachable, although rescuers would shut down at least one lane of the highway, depending on the size and scope of the crash.

An accident in the eastbound lanes would prove more difficult for firefighters, as the cable barriers would stand between them and the wounded.

“We want to make sure we’re on the right side of the road for an auto accident,” Eby said, “so that when we come up to it, we’re not going to have to go past it and turn around,” prolonging response time.

The Cherryville area, split between the Sandy and Hoodland fire districts, is an “automatic mutual aid” area, meaning that firefighters from both agencies would respond to incidents there.

So with responders from two different organizations bringing rigs to an incident, there’s not going to be a lot of room for drivers. Motorists instead could be directed to the Cherryville Drive loop, a narrow, two-lane road that could pose additional traffic hazards.

Eby also said he’d like to have more detailed information from dispatchers to best understand where crashes are, both geographically and in relation to the barriers. “That way we know what to expect,” he said.