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HOUSTON — Harris County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday night to change the engineer of record on the Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge after a review found one portion that had not yet been built contained a potential design flaw. The Harris County Toll Road Authority hired an independent consultant, COWI North America, Inc., to review the design of the bridge. HCTRA deputy director John Tyler told KHOU 11 in January that COWI found the possible weakness in December 2019. The design comes from FIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc., the same company behind a Florida pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018,...

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....

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...

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...

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.

Aerial footage shows the aftermath of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapsing on Southwest Eighth Street in Miami on March 15, 2018. Pedro Portal Miami Herald In the hours after a 950-ton pedestrian bridge over Tamiami Trail collapsed Thursday afternoon, killing at least four people, civil engineers began to speculate about potential causes. Was it a design error? Did something go wrong during construction? The answer may be buried deep in the calculations made by workers who were conducting a stress test on the unfinished and vulnerable bridge. Any such test, experts told the Miami Herald, requires extreme care and precision...

FULL TITLE: 'Up to 10' people crushed to death as 950-ton pedestrian bridge collapses on top of cars and pedestrians on Florida college campus - just five days after it was installed Up to 10 people have been killed when a newly installed pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes of traffic collapsed at Florida International University on Thursday. US Senator Bill Nelson of Florida told local TV station CBS Miami that between six to 10 people died. The 174-foot 'instant bridge' hailed as a feat of engineering and safety, was installed Saturday morning but was not due to open to the...

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...

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — Florida International University’s massive new pedestrian bridge collapsed Thursday afternoon in West Miami-Dade. The bridge, located at 109th Ave and 8th Street, collapsed on a number of cars. There are reports of numerous people injured in the collapse. At least one person was taken as a trauma alert to the hospital, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. The 950-ton bridge went up on Saturday. It was then lowered into its final position, just west of 109th Avenue that day. The main span was built next to Southwest 8th Street.