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Contact: Barb Maynes, 360-565-3005 Contact: Rainey McKenna, 360-565-2985
The Hurricane Ridge Road will close for five hours each morning for up to eight days to allow the Olympic National Park road crew to complete annual ditch clearing. From Monday, June 10 through Thursday, June 13 and Monday, June 17 through Thursday, June 20, the road will be closed to vehicle traffic at the Heart o'the Hills entrance station between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. each day in order to allow the crew to work safely and quickly. In recent years, the annual ditching project was accomplished without closing the road, as flaggers directed motorists through the one-lane work area.However, the loss of two seasonal road crew positions due to sequestration has reduced staff capacity and flaggers are not available this year. "Without flaggers to provide safe travel conditions through work areas on the narrow and winding road, we will close the road for several hours each day," said Olympic National Park Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum."Safety of our employees and visitors remains our highest priority," she emphasized. Effective March 1, 2013, Olympic National Park was required by sequestration (a series of automatic, across-the-board permanent spending cuts) to reduce its annual budget by five percent.The mandatory reduction resulted in a loss of approximately $640,000 from the park's annual budget, resulting in a reduction from $12,875,000 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 to an estimated $12,235,000 in FY2013. |
Last updated: February 28, 2015