Traffic alert: Cars coming to a stop near Purdy Bridge after car flips onto side
Update: The scene has been cleared, spokesperson Anne Nesbit confirmed Thursday evening.
Original post:
A wreck off of the Purdy Bridge led to traffic bottlenecks approaching the Purdy Spit Thursday afternoon.
Key Peninsula Fire Department spokesperson Anne Nesbit wrote in text messages that “one car was on its side.” She understood two cars were involved in the incident and that one pulled into a nearby gas station, she wrote.
There don’t “appear to have been any dangerous or significant injuries,” she wrote.
In a phone call around 2 p.m., Washington State Patrol spokesperson Shannon McKenzie identified only one vehicle in the incident, a white passenger car that fell into a ditch. Nesbit deferred to the Washington State Patrol’s account as the agency investigating the incident.
Asked if DUI was a factor in the incident, McKenzie said that nobody was arrested and there was no impairment.
Fire personnel were dispatched at 12:36 p.m. and both Key Peninsula Fire and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One units responded to the scene, according to Nesbit. She wrote at 1:06 p.m. that they are waiting on a tow truck and that she anticipates the road clearing soon.
She wrote shortly after 1 p.m. that the Washington State Patrol “is now in control of the scene.”
The Washington State Department of Transportation travel map showed stop-and-go traffic extending across the bridge onto Purdy Drive.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include additional details from Key Peninsula Fire and the Washington State Patrol.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 1:32 PM.
