In Washington state, ferry boats are vital transportation for a serious number of people. It’s the biggest ferry operation in the US, third biggest in the world.

Washington State Ferries (WSF) is run by the state Department of Transportation and had 22.5 million total riders in 2013. The busiest line is Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and that had 6.3 million total riders. It carried 60,000 people a day.

So cool.

Last week the Tacoma, on the Seattle-Bainbridge route, lost power. The Walla Walla had to handle everybody by itself. (There were other fleet problems which limited the number of ferries available.) The Coast Guard, which gets to say how many people it’s safe for a boat to carry in a given situation, said the Walla Walla might carry 1,200 per trip. It can carry 2,000 people (and 200 cars), but the Coasties’ number was based on the Walla Walla‘s 600 life raft seats and the plan that if things really went pear-shaped, the nearby Sealth would take the remaining 600.

All right, that’s handled. Nice to know we’re in good hands.

Instead, the Walla Walla only boarded 600 people per trip. Which meant a lot of people waiting in line for a long time. Hours. There were restroom issues.

Rita Belserene, who was kind enough to tip us off (thank you!), was trying to commute home from Seattle with her bike. She explains that “with one boat down, you have twice the number of people, bikes, and cars hoping to get on each sailing and you’re limiting it to a total of 600 people – a fraction of the norm. The broken boat means they’ve cut the sailings in half and they’ve got to go with way fewer passengers on each run. The employees are stuck trying to explain it all and enforce order in a 3-hour long wait.”

She was lucky because as a bike rider, she was allowed to wait in the car holding area – and could use its bathroom. Most riders were less fortunate.

Judy Kennedy told the Seattle Times “It was very upsetting for people who got on the boats, to see the boats were only half full.” She was among those “held back by yellow tape into holding areas.”

Over the hours, apparently, some of these clench-crotched people spoke harshly to the employees who were keeping them penned up. It wasn’t any fun for the employees either.

Yet most behaved well. “The strict crew members in the terminal did the best they could to keep order and except for a very few line cutters, most people were being very good sports about the terrible conditions – standing only, no bathroom accessibility, no water, no free vouchers given to any of us, and very poor communication,” Kennedy said.

The big question is why the Walla Walla only carried 600 per trip, hour after hour, trip after trip, when the Coast Guard had said they could carry 1,200?

The next day, WSF director Captain George Capacci said he didn’t have details, but “Somehow that information didn’t get communicated to the captain of the Walla Walla fast enough, soon enough, and to the dispatch.”

Ah. Somehow.

Capacci said he was generally satisfied with WSF staff performance in the situation. He said:

I get it. I apologize to our employees who had to put up with that huge crowd, and to the passengers who were inconvenienced.

Dreadful apology. It prioritizes the staff over the public. It’s specific about why this was hard for the staff, and vague about the public being “inconvenienced.” No responsibility is taken. Not to mention the aggrieved-sounding “I get it.”

I wonder if someone told him, “Show that you get it.” But that takes more than saying “I get it.” (Note to certain people who probably don’t know who they are: “I get it, I get it, I GET IT ALREADY,” isn’t better.)

Oddly, people were still complaining even after they got to use a bathroom and go home.

The next day, at a telephone press conference, Capacci described how the WSF would assign boats for the remainder of the week, and said they should be back to normal service by Monday.

He was asked about those details on the 600 vs. 1,200 passengers thing.

He said that someone should have ensured that the order (for 1,200) was acknowledged. “The loop didn’t get completed,” he specified. “The command didn’t get to the right person at the right time.”

Oh. Thanks for the details.

Some musing gadfly pointed out that WSF headquarters are just 1.3 miles from the ferry dock, and asked whether someone could have biked there to confirm the 1,200 number. “An interesting idea; we’ll have to see if we’ve got bikes in the garage,” said Capacci.