The $92,172 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“stimulus”) funding received by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe and used in 2010 to construct a guardrail along U.S. Highway 101 above the tribal campus has proved its worth.

 

This work was considered a priority in an effort to protect tribal facilities and to keep vehicles from leaving the highway above Heron Hall.

 

On Wednesday, Sept. 14, a log truck owned by Rygaard Trucking of Port Angeles and driven by Michael Wade Warren, 45, of Port Angeles, was heading eastbound on Highway 101 at about 8:10 a.m. when it made a sudden stop and hit the guardrail along the north side of the highway above the tribal campus, directly across the highway from Chicken Coop Road.

 

The driver braked to avoid rear-ending a vehicle turning left off the highway onto Chicken Coop Road. The log truck then swerved left over the center line and collided with a semi-freight-truck owned by Atlas Trucking Inc. of Port Angeles and driven by Alfred Lawrence Alderon, 44, of Port Angeles. No one was injured and neither truck hit the vehicle that had stopped to make the left turn.

 

Tribal staff said they heard and felt the impact of the truck — first on the guardrail and then of the two trucks colliding. The guardrail stopped the first truck from careening over the bank into the tribal parking lot.

 

Traffic was diverted and the highway did not reopen for nearly two hours until a commercial truck towing company from Port Angeles arrived to remove the log truck.