Posted on 03/16/2018 7:36:02 AM PDT by Beave Meister
When a 175-foot stretch of a concrete bridge collapsed Thursday afternoon over Southwest Eighth Street, slamming down onto cars waiting at a stoplight, a prominent construction team instantly came under scrutiny.
Munilla Construction Management and FIGG Bridge Group, the firms behind the $14.3 million walkway connecting Florida International University to the tiny blue-collar burb of Sweetwater, have a long history of massive public works projects, political donations — and a few safety issues.
MCM is one of the most influential construction firms in Miami-Dade, and its executives are significant donors in county races. Pedro Munilla, the partner and company vice president who helps lead the firm, is a former attorney who was effectively disbarred in 2001. A Florida Supreme Court filing said Munilla agreed to a “disciplinary resignation” which is “tantamount to disbarment.” His Florida Bar listing includes his MCM email address and identifies Munilla as “not eligible to practice law in Florida.”
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
All this is mute.
The job supervisors directives,folowing of guide lines and OSHA procedures is the only thing related to this collapse.
Which were obviously not adhered to or the deaths would not have occurred
Couldn’t read the article. Does it say WHO received their political donations? I was able to read that Rubio talked with the company after the collapse and then I got a screen that instructed me to rotate my device and then it went black. Republicans or Democrats? Or both sides like most big companies will support?
Moot, my FRiend. Moot.
NO.
OSHA? This was a design and construction error/problem/mistake/decision.
OSHA would have detailed rules telling you to wear safety harnesses attached to a “secure foundation” capable of xxx lbs tension by a “engineer” ... but only incidentally requires the full structure be built safely over the road and for the workers on the bridge.
A democrat donor contractor building a democrat-donor-designed bridge “design” getting government (democrat) money from a democrat (Obama) administration in a democrat city in a democrat congressional district for a democrat (liberal) “university” favoring minority and illegal alien workers? Yeah. No possibility of corruption in that mix.
I disagree.
Contract requirements, structural design, shop drawing requirements and approvals, stipulated installation sequences and a number of other factors could have been a cause of this collapse.
If the bridge would not support itself without the overhead suspension system in place then there had to be a licensed professional structural engineer’s designed temporary support system, either in the original design, or required to be purchased and designed during the course of the contract. If that was not an contract requirement of the original design, and the cause, then the designer is largely to blame.
Details of OSHA guidelines would only come into play in a general sense. Stating that this is a field superintendent’s error without the details is a wild guess at this point and absurd.
Who’s guide lines call to stop traffic ?
I’m no engineer, but they were asking a lot from the bottom slab of prestressed concrete. Somewhere in the truss set up there was too much tensile force, which concrete doesn’t handle well. Could also be the bottom slab wasn’t up to spec.
All this is mute.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Moot. The word you want is “moot”; not “mute”.
How did they get a TIGER grant for this? Those were supposed to go for projects that had some kind of national import. Though I’m guessing the TIGER program was just another one of Obama’s slush funds
Sort of gives a new meaning to the term “Spring Break”.
Hammurabi. The Babylonian emperor who called for the death of a contractor whose building killed a citizen.
And how many unskilled illegal aliens were working on the construction crew?
Don’t expect that figure to ever come out.
No shit and yer late
Cute,
If that thing was being supported by a crane or any other method other than the final and permanent attachment, nothing or no one should have been allowed underpin or around it, in case something like what happened happens so it really doesn’t mater why it collapsed be it foreign steel imagrent workers political payola none of that crap. If that guide line was in place and I am sure it was these people would all be alive.
Um, no.
OSHA regulations codify construction safety rules. In this case the OSHA rules prohibit suspending loads over live traffic. You cant just swing a crane over a street full of cars. OSHA regulations require that ouclose down the street or highway and clear it of vehicles temporarily before you can swing the crane over the freeway lanes.
They correctly closed the highway lanes when they rolled the bridge into place.
They violated OSHA regulations when they loosened supporting cables and performed a stress test above a highway full of cars and trucks. That was the violation here. The highway should have been empty beneath the bridge in that temporary condition to conduct the in place testing.
The bridge still in the middle of construction. The temporary cables were needed in the interim to hold up the bridge until the tower was finished being built, and all the permanent supporting cables from the tower to the bridge deck, were in place.
What I don’t know is if the bridge was designed to allow the short term loosening of some of the temporary suppoeting cables without collapsing. If not, then it was a violation of the approved plan to loosen those cables before the peranent cables were installed. On the other hand, if the bridge was designed to be self supporting during construction, then tere is some other reason for the collapse.
First we have to know if the bridge was roperly designed, including any temporary configurations during construction. If the design was adequate, then Next we need to know if the bridge was built precisely to design, or if misakes or poor workmanship compromised the bridges strength.
If the bridge was designed correctly and built to design, then somebody failed to use safe construction practices, which is what I expect.
Now, after ALL that, it is a rotten shame if for any reason your brand new $15 million bridge falls down and you have to start over from scratch.
What is unforgivably criminally neglegent, is working over live traffic where there is ANY CHANCE of things going wrong posing a risk of collapse, like they did by loosening supporting cables and performing stress testing over highway lanes filled with people in cars and trucks.
This is very much an OSHA violation, and will result in huge fines for the contractors. But nothing can bring back the innocent people who died. What the Contractors did loosening cables over traffic is akin to voluntary manslaughter. Somebody should be going to jail, but they won’t. The worst thing that can practically happen is that the contracor loses his license, but that almost neer happens. And even if it did, he would just change the company from his wife’s name to his daughter’s name or his sister’s name, thereby remaining a WBE Women Owned Business to get preferential bidding.
OSHA regulations require you do not have an unsecured load over live traffic, so any operation where something has any chance of falling on traffic below, requires closing the lanes so no traffic is below the bridge during that ork.
A plan for this temporary work has to be signed and stamed by a licensed engineer. Then whoever is overseeing the job, they must review the plan and when satisfied with it, Their Florida State licensed engineer must sign off the plan and stamp it with their engineering seal.
Now, after ALL. That, it is up to someone who is administering the contract to enforce the OSHA rule and prevent the contractor from violating the approved signed and stamped plan.
I thought I read that the University did not hire the contractor. I don’t know if it was the State of Florida, the City of Miami, or who. But whoever it was who awarded the bid to the contractor, it is ultimate their decision and responsibility to close the lanes if necessary. The Contractor is the one who is supposed to ask to close the lanes, but they don’t have authority. It is either the State or County or City that owns the right of way for the highway, and only they can accept or deny the Contractor’s request to close highway lanes. Lets just say it was the city of Miami that put out the job and is aying for it, then they would be administering the contract.
So if the City of Miami told the contractor not to loosen cables that day because they denied a request to close the lanes, then the contractor is 100% at fault for violating the City’s direction not to work. If on the other hand, if the City approved the work over live ve traffic lanes, then both are to blame for violating the approved plan and the OSHA rules.
Mud works for me...........
The Florida State enginee would have stayed it approved. He didn’t prepare the design or supervise it during the preparation. Only the lead engineer for the design company would have stamped and signed it. That is the requirement that the plans were prepared by a licensed PE.
The design was supposed to be bridge supported by hanging on cables from the central support.
Idiets put up one half of the bridge, made of concrete, made to hang, but not supported over the span.
It collapsed under own weight. They needed to support it while the other half and center support tower is raised and cables ran to the anchor points on the bridges.
PC smart ass engineering, funded by tax dollars and kickbacks to politicians.
FRee advice from FRengineer.
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