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Miami, Florida imam, Fadi Kablawi, says a lot of incredibly offensive things. He has referred to Jews as “the lowest of the lowest” ... He has said that Christians practice a “fake” religion and that “Christianity can compete for first place in stupidity.” Kablawi’s insults and bigotry know no bounds. This past August, he looked to outrage once again, blaming women for rape and pondering why Allah has not destroyed the United States and all homosexuals. His rhetoric is dangerous, and it quite possibly has influenced his congregants to plot unspeakable acts. Fadi Yousef Kablawi (Qablawi) was born in Amman,...

FIU professor: Collapsed Surfside building showed signs of subsidence in ‘90sThe area where a building partially collapsed in Surfside, Fla. showed signs of land subsidence in the 1990s, according to space-based radar data analyzed by an FIU professor. The 2020 study conducted by FIU Institute of Environment Professor Shimon Wdowinski identified the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium as the one place on the east side of the barrier island where land subsidence was detected from 1993 to 1999. But land subsidence in and of itself likely would not cause a building’s collapse, according to Wdowinski, an expert in space geodesy,...

HOUSTON – Following 20 months of construction of the new Ship Channel Bridge along the Beltway 8, the county has issued a pause. Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said the decision was made following the discovery of a design flaw with part of the bridge. “I want to make sure that we are doing everything on behalf of public safety to ensure that everything is well,” Garcia said. “This was obviously concerning and alarming for me." John Tyler, the deputy director of engineering with the Harris County Toll Road Authority and in charge of the project, said the flaw was...

The last time the National Transportation Safety Board came down hard on engineering and construction was in 2007. That year, the board delivered reports on the collapse of the I-35 Highway Bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people, and on a ceiling collapse in a Boston Central Artery tunnel that killed one motorist. Both involved completed structures. With its final investigation findings, the board also made recommendations for new standards and procedures and quality control. NTSB's report on last year’s Miami bridge collapse at Florida International University in mid-construction, which killed five motorists and one construction worker, has similar recommendations....

A bridge-building disaster should be incomprehensible in today’s technical world. Humans have been building bridges for centuries. The science should be well sorted out by now — and for the most part, it is. But the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the March 2018 collapse of the FIU pedestrian bridge highlighted basic design flaws and a complete lack of oversight by every single party that had responsibility to either identify the design errors or stop work once it was clear that there was a massive internal failure. We all know “what happened” here. But the “why” is more elusive....

The board determined a year ago that FIGG engineers overestimated how much stress the bridge could endure, the paper reported. Only two days before the brand-new structure went down, an engineer left a voicemail with officials and warned that some cracking had been found at one end of the concrete span. n the voicemail, FIGG’s lead engineer on the project, Denney Pate, acknowledged that the cracking would need repairs, “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.” Walsh also noted that the construction was at “high...

Dive Brief: Six more contractors and designers have settled lawsuits for undisclosed amounts with victims' families and the survivors of the March 15, 2018, pedestrian bridge collapse at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, the Miami Herald reported. Among the companies that settled is FIGG Bridge Group, which designed the pedestrian span. The other five companies are Bolton Perez & Associates; Corradino Group; A&P Consulting Transportation Engineers Corp.; RLT Engineering Services LLC; and Gerdau Ameristeel US Inc. There are more than 20 defendants being sued in civil lawsuits in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for their alleged roles in the collapse. The...

Last week, federal authorities fined Munilla Construction Management $25,868 for “serious” safety violations in its role as the contractor on the Florida International University bridge that collapsed in March, killing six people. The morning after the collapse, Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said the department’s homicide squad would explore criminal charges for contractors such as MCM. “We’ve got to look at the reality that there may be some negligence down the line,” Perez said. Perez answers to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who appointed him director in January 2016. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida where the...

A federal judge Friday blocked the release of documents that could shed light on why a busy road outside Miami was not shut down before a brand-new bridge developing severe cracks collapsed and killed six people. Judge William Stafford said the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the Florida International University bridge disaster, “was exercising its valid federal regulatory authority” in keeping the documents confidential from the media. Stafford’s ruling essentially overturns a previous decision from a state court that would have released the records under Florida’s broad public records law. Stafford said the state court did not...

An NTSB forensic investigation update of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapse addresses structural components related to the now infamous crack, and others.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report on the fatal collapse in March of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Sweetwater focuses attention on the widely discussed pre-collapse cracking in the main span. The report also confirms accounts about what the construction crew working on the bridge was doing before the structure fell. But the report contains no definitive explanation of what occurred and months and possibly years more will be needed to determine the probable cause of the failure, which killed five motorists and one project worker.

Pedestrian bridge collapse on Thursday March 15:

.., Politicized Review Process. The TIGER grant program has come under fire for putting politics ahead of technical concerns.....The pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University's Miami-Dade campus today, killing several people, was funded with $11.4 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. The TIGER program has come under repeated fire for awarding money based on politics rather than merit......Members of Florida's congressional delegation publicly lauded the TIGER award to FIU. "Thanks to this TIGER funding, FIU students will be able to walk from their student housing to class through a pedestrian...

The all-women engineering team that designed the ill-fated pedestrian foot bridge at Miami’s Florida International University were highly touted for their advances in a field that is typically dominated by men. But critics are pointing the finger of blame at the female engineers for design flaws that may have brought the bridge down. Investigators are still on the scene of last week’s bridge collapse that killed 6 people and injured 9 on the FIU campus in Southwest Miami. The investigation is focusing on the work done by a team of all-women engineers who were employed by one of the construction...

link only: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/16/miami-bridge-collapse-suspension-cables-support-tower/431418002/

An engineer left a voicemail two days before a catastrophic bridge failure in Miami to say some cracking had been found at one end of the concrete span, but the voicemail wasn't picked up until after the collapse, Florida Department of Transportation officials said Friday. The voicemail left on a landline wasn't heard by a state DOT employee until Friday because the employee was out of the office on an assignment, the agency said in an email. In a transcript released Friday night, Denney Pate with FIGG Bridge Group says the cracking would need repairs "but from a safety perspective...

An engineer called the Florida Department of Transportation to report concerns about a crack on their new 'instant' bridge two days before it collapsed - but no one ever picked up their voicemail. FIGG's lead engineer responsible for the Florida International University, FIU, pedestrian bridge project, W. Denney Pate, left a message warning that they had observed some cracking at the north end of the bridge. The voicemail was not picked up until Friday - a day after the bridge collapsed killing six. Pate warned that the cracking areas would need repairs but assured that, 'from a safety perspective we...

Engineering experts say investigators looking into the collapsed ‘instant’ bridge in Miami will want to know why a central tower which is usually built to support a suspension bridge was not in place when it collapsed onto Tamiami Trail on Thursday afternoon. Last week, Florida International University’s official Twitter account posted a rendering of the bridge in its completed form as envisioned by the planners before its opening to foot traffic in early 2019. The rendering shows a tall central column with cables connecting it to the main span. Engineers say the design is known as a ‘cable-stayed bridge,’ which...

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...

A pedestrian walkway in Miami collapsed on Thursday, killing several people. The Florida Highway Patrol confirmed the fatalities after multiple vehicles were crushed by the span near Florida International University's campus. According to Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue, there were people on the bridge and several cars underneath it. Miami-Dade Fire Chief Dave Downey said they found eight vehicles trapped under the bridge after they got a call alerting the fire department of the incident. Eight victims were transported to local hospitals, but he said the authorities planned to continue search and rescue throughout the evening.