Posted on 11/15/2019 12:40:43 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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. But it also has stinging criticism of the structural engineer and of the performance of the construction team as a whole.
Of the many investigations the board has performed, chairman Robert Sumwalt pointed out, none has had as much finger-pointing.
Magnum Construction Management and its subcontractor on a design-build contract, FIGG Bridge Engineers, each accuse the other of making the fatal errors.
Once cracks grew significant, one might assume that on this singular project and design there would be a cohesive and effective crisis response.
What happened instead was passivity and deference to engineer FIGG, which failed to recognize the emergency.
(Excerpt) Read more at enr.com ...
PING.
If I am not mistaken, the entire engineering team was female. Am I correct about that? That is what was reported during the follow-up to the collapse.
I saw an article that the design engineers responsible for the Miami collapse were all womyn. I saved the link; but it’s been scrubbed from the web. Doesn’t fit the narrative. And ain’t I a woman? But when I cross a bridge or drive under a bridge, I want it to stand.
You are correct...and it was not their first awful failure....the website talks about bridges as art. Seriously. Someone should be looking at the contract award....
My understanding also.
IIRC The entire focus of this design and installation procedure was NOT TO IMPEDE TRAFFIC ON THE ROADWAY. Mid-span temporary support was vetoed because it might cause traffic flow problems.
And they need to ask why no one wanted to shut the road down?
I am no engineer but spent a lot of time on construction projects...
Just looking at it..looked to me like it needed a beam down the middle for support..
If so, it was probably a larger team, then: the usual number of collaborating members for the project itself, plus 2 or 3 others going around saying, “I’m here to talk if you need to.”
The second comment at the site says the bridge engineer was from China, for what that’s worth...
I’m not sure that putting a support in the median of the road would have impeded traffic. It’s a wide road.
Safety takes over when a situation like this presents itself. In retrospect, the cost of the accident, the cost of the settlements, the cost to the company, none of these adds up to the concern over some people being late to their jobs because a road was closed.
So it gets back to ... what in h*ll were these people thinking?
Note, CSP in my tagline is for Certified Safety Professional (ret)
Safety takes over when a situation like this presents itself. In retrospect, the cost of the accident, the cost of the settlements, the cost to the company, none of these adds up to the concern over some people being late to their jobs because a road was closed.
So it gets back to ... what in h*ll were these people thinking?
Note, CSP in my tagline is for Certified Safety Professional (ret)
I meet a beam in the poured concrete structure...
It was on huge flat span of concrete...
Like in a parking garage..
This analysis and identification of the forensic evidence is pretty good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KtiTm2dKLgU
“The second comment at the site says the bridge engineer was from China, for what that’s worth...”
There are more females in China than males so that it still could be true that the engineering crew was all females. ;-)
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio
there are 1.06 men for every 1.0 women in China (total).
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