"Screw them and their damn tunnel! Take my name off of it!"
Posted on 07/20/2006 10:03:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
BOSTON (AP) - Gov. Mitt Romney ordered an immediate shutdown of the Ted Williams Tunnel's eastbound lanes Thursday as the investigation continued into a deadly collapse of ceiling panels in a connecting tunnel.
No reasons for the closure were immediately released. The governor has been overseeing the inspections of the Big Dig tunnels since shortly after the fatal accident July 10 that killed Milena Del Valle, 38, as she and her husband drove to the airport.
The Ted Williams Tunnel was a key part of the city's massive Big Dig project and leads from Boston to Logan International Airport. The Interstate 90 tunnel where a woman was crushed by 12 tons of falling cement ceiling panels leads to the Ted Williams Tunnel.
Romney said state engineers had found two bolts that appeared to have slipped 1/2-inch and 1 inch in one ceiling panel. A special truck -- which expands to 11 1/2-feet wide, blocking the two travel lanes -- has been brought in to shore up the ceiling. He said engineers were working to come up with plan to reinforce the panel and allow traffic to pass. "It is perhaps an overreaction but we want to err on the side of public safety," Romney said at a news conference in which he said he was overruling an earlier finding by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority that the tunnel was safe. The governor used emergency legislation to take control of overseeing the inspections of the Big Dig tunnels away from the authority shortly after the accident that killed Milena Del Valle, 39, as she and her husband drove to the airport. Engineers have been conducting so-called "pull tests" on tunnel ceilings after four of the three-ton panels in the Interstate 90 connector tunnel collapsed. The ceiling tiles in the Ted Williams tunnel are secured with a different system, and weigh much less, about 800 pounds each. Since the accident, crews have removed all the heavy tiles from the connector tunnel after tests showed none of the bolts that used epoxy could be trusted.
More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/07/20/massachusetts_governor_orders_shutdown_of_ted_williams_tunnel?mode=PF
"Screw them and their damn tunnel! Take my name off of it!"
Did they poll the survivors?
Good question.
If that's considered an "engineering marvel", I'd hate to see one where they screwed up!
I hate to ask this, and not that it matters, but what was the status of the Costa Rican victims? Visitors?
Since the MSM won't say, I can only assume........eh hem.
bump
Blame will fall on "field engineers", managers and inspectors.
Design and testing functions probably not at fault.
I believe the late Milena del Valle became a US citizen... from Margery Eagan's column in today's Herald: "How true and ironic, particularly since Milena Del Valle, killed in the tunnel in her ’91 Buick, was, until her marriage to a U.S. citizen, a member of the most vilified group in America - illegal immigrants"
They'll soon be able to to that--they'll try to rescue the Big Dig by using yet-to-be-developed rapid transit submarines.
Isn't it crazy how Ted William's Satan son died a young and painful death?
It just took a special law for the current governor to even get permission to inspect the BIG DIG
How can it be the Republican Governors fault if it took a NEW LAW to even let the REPUBLICAN governors look at the damn project.
Democrats were not about to let a Republican governor take a look at that level of corruption. They would not even let the Governor fire the man in charge of the project. He tried.
I'm still laughing at myself for misreading the title of the thread:
Gov. Romney Shouts Down Big Dig Tunnel.
What? 'Splain it to me Hildy.
I agree. BTW, Matt Amarello, chairman of the Turnpike Authroity, is a Republican. In a previous life, he was elected, if I recall, as a State Senator representing Worcester.
(Pronounced "woostah", for non Bostonites....)
Yeah. I recalled correctly. Amorello is a republican.
http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=148096
Ted Williams's son was the one who had the head frozen...and he was a big disappointment in Ted's later years. He tried to make money off of everything, even going behind Ted's back. I know for a fact Ted Williams was VERY unhappy with his actions and therefore, probably didn't agree to have his "head" frozen. The son, John Henry Williams died of Leukemia in 2004, at the age of 34 of Leukemia.
I recall the story about the frozen head. Wow, what a piece of work.
I wonder if the head has been laid to rest. Brrrrr....
I did a little Googling about John Henry Williams, and it gets even worse. He, his sister, and their father, Ted Williams, signed a pact saying they all wanted to to be sent to the Alcor cooler when they each died. There were rumors that John Henry wanted to sell some of his father's DNA samples, and 8 of Ted William's DNA samples taken by Alcor are missing for unknown reasons.
So, to finish this pleasant little discussion, I've read that John Henry Williams' body was sent to Alcor after his death, but I can't find definitive proof of that. It's not a cheap process, y'know, and now I don't feel very good for some odd reason.:)
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