BRINNON — Work on a flood-damaged 20-foot section of Dosewallips Road is nearly done, Jefferson County Road Department officials said.
But the 400-foot washout in Olympic National Forest farther up the road leaves the eastern entrance to Olympic National Park severed, as it has been since 2002.
Asphalt for the much smaller county road work will not be available until March when asphalt plants start up.
“It is graveled but needs to be paved,” said Monte Reinders, Jefferson County engineer.
Reinders estimated that it will cost the county about $200,000 to rebuild the road section, which washed out in November during heavy rains.
Seton Construction of Port Townsend did the repair work in Brinnon.
Reinders said railing will be installed once the road is patched up.
State of emergency
The washout led the Jefferson County commissioners in November to declare a state of emergency, an action intended to expedite the repair process.
Two of the three county commissioners, David Sullivan of Cape George and John Austin of Port Ludlow and whose district covers Brinnon, signed the emergency order.
“I am just thankful the [whole] road didn’t go,” said Dosewallips Road resident Joe Baisch, who lives west of the washout with his wife, Joy, on riverside property.
“I would be hiking.”
The washout occurred when a culvert was blocked by debris, undermining the road, causing a small section of the eastbound side to deteriorate about 2.7 miles west of U.S. Highway 101.
County road crews began dumping large rocks down the washed-out part of the bank to build an access road for an excavator to get down the hill and shore up the problem areas that remain.
Crews created room along the westbound lane to reopen the road to two-way traffic.
Dosewallips Road’s 2002 washout by the raging Dosewallips River in Olympic National Forest about 10 miles west of Highway 101 made vehicle passage impossible.
About 400 feet of the road fell into the river.
County officials and the U.S. Forest Service are now working on rerouting the road above the Dosewallips River so vehicles can again have access to the national forest’s campgrounds west of the washout as well as to the east side of Olympic National Park.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
