I noticed it first thing Monday morning. The travel times page and the live cameras available on the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) website went down early in the morning. The cameras were down in Pierce, Thurston, Grays Harbor, and Kitsap Counties.
All the vital travel data that WSDOT provides, like real-time data, was down. All WSDOT said on social media was that gremlins were at work.
Damaged copper wire took traffic systems offline across 4 counties
A KIRO Newsradio listener asked me this morning if I had noticed that the ramp meters were dark at the on-ramp from Nisqually to northbound I-5. They had been out for a few days.
I reached out to WSDOT Olympic Region communications manager Cara Mitchell to find out what happened, and this all goes back to an attempted wire theft…