Florida: Engineer Warned Of Crack 2 Days Before Miami Bridge Collapse – IOTW Report

Florida: Engineer Warned Of Crack 2 Days Before Miami Bridge Collapse

WRKO:  An engineer for the company that designed the bridge that crumbled in Miami called a Florida Department of Transportation employee warning of “some cracking” in a voicemail just two days before it collapsed.

The call from W. Denny Pate of FIGG Bridge Engineers, went went unanswered by the state employee who was out on assignment that day.

“We’ve taken a look at it and, uh, obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done. But from a safety perspective, we don’t see that there’s any issue there so we’re not concerned about it from that perspective, although obviously the cracking is not good and something’s going to have to be, ya know, done to repair that.”

Employees didn’t hear the voicemail left by Pate until Friday, after the bridge had already fallen. FIGG Engineering was behind the bridge project, partnering with Munilla Construction company, a family-owned contractor.   more here

19 Comments on Florida: Engineer Warned Of Crack 2 Days Before Miami Bridge Collapse

  1. Tim, wrong durometer for the temps……..

    Anybody else seen the dash cam on GLP showing it fall? Catch it before it disappears. I can’t copy and paste on this reader.

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  2. Wanton Gross Criminal Negligence – I suspect that the school and Fla officials pressured the decision to keep traffic moving.

    Prison time, and I mean twenty plus years as a starting point for EVERYONE who had a hand in the decision would be too light.

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  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtiTm2dKLgU

    I don’t see a tension failure in the structure as the method of failure. I see a compression failure in the top cord to the left of the jacking point of the failed tendon as what brought ‘er down. That tendon was adding to the load in that web member and it breaking would have taken load off that member and transferring it to the top cord instantaneously giving not only overload, but shock.

    Just my opinion, but that web member punched through and was basically intact. Everything above the lower deck to the right of that jacked web member carries none of the load. It would have increased the load on the top cord shitload without the tendon compressing it and taking some of the compression load of the top cord.

    I am going with my original thought of compression failure in the top cord more than ever.

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  4. Mark my words. There is/are going to be structural engineers who said “Don’t do this.” They the antithesis of what I call the politician/ungineers (they masquerade as engineers, but are more politician than engineer). They undo what engineers do.

    They got their way and there WILL be a paper train from the real engineers with structural knowledge were called “deniers.” I have been around this profession long enough to know how it went down.

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  5. The truth is already known, but people who know won’t admit to it. Due to plenty of lawsuits for $$millions in the future?
    Two glaring and obvious realities that aren’t being emphasized:
    The bridge did not have the required middle structural support. Essentially it was resting on air.
    The pedestrian bridge was built of ultra tons of cement instead of lighter weight materials for people, not vehicles.
    This is scientific, engineering fact:
    FIU Bridge Collapse: Why Müller-Breslau Matters
    “This FIU Bridge Collapse, I add, is a result of a missing essential center safety support tower mechanism located at midspan across the enormously long 174-foot span of the integrated truss post-tension prestressed concrete continuous beam construction, as shown in the cover diagram of this article. ”

    “Müller-Breslau‘s principle demands that a middle support tower mechanism is essential to prevent the FIU pedestrian bridge collapse mechanism, . . . ”
    https://olivermcgee.org/fiu-bridge-collapse-why-muller-breslau-matters/

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