Engineer on 'Instant Bridge' called authorities TWO DAYS before deadly collapse to report a CRACK

Daily Mail ^ | 03/16/18 | HANNAH PARRY and ARIEL ZILBER

[jetson]

bip

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

So the message ends like this:

Pate warned that the cracking areas would need repairs but assured that, 'from a safety perspective we don't see that there's any issue.'

Why complain about the governments role? If the engineer could not see the problem, who else could?

Why was the incomplete structure not shored? If it's supposed to have a cable stayed support tower installed after the span is placed, what was supposed to hold it up until then?

[doug from upland]

Who would merely leave an email? With something that important. You go to office and make sure everyone knows.

[TigersEye]

In China several people would soon be shot and their families billed for the bullets.

Not that we should act like China.

[ETCM]

Who would merely leave an email? With something that important. You go to office and make sure everyone knows.

The "engineer" was clear that the issue was "cosmetic", so there was no need to press the issue. The headline is clickbait.

From the article:

Pate warned that the cracking areas would need repairs but assured that, 'from a safety perspective we don't see that there's any issue.'

[353FMG]

Super-Glue would have been a better choice.

[cpdiii]

an engineer called 2 days before, left a message, but didn’t try again or call someone else when the message wasn’t returned ? That’s not looking too good for Mr. Engineer. Hope there’s more to his story.

No it is not looking good for him. He is probably a very good engineer but a product of institutional bureaucracy which moves slowly.

I worked for 17 years on drilling rig offshore around the world. We drilled for gas and oil and some of it was of extreme high pressure and sometimes we incurred unexpected high pressures. We had a drilling program that we followed. However when encountering unexpected problems or pressures we had to take care of it on the fly with our own expertise. If we screwed up we could lose the rig and possible our lives.

[ETCM]

That’s a rendering. The left span, center tower and support cables were not yet present when the collapse occurred.

[Steve Van Doorn]

Thanks. I asked to delete

[wardaddy]

Dade

West dade.

[DoughtyOne]

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[Tucker39]

Spackling compound. It fills the crack, and then can be painted to camoflage the defect. Voila! End of problem......NOT!

[Delta 21]

"....what was supposed to hold it up until then?"

THAT seems to be at the root of everyone's thinking. I hope at least one of the investigators will ask specifically that question.

Math is hard.

College is expensive, but they must teach engineers that attend something purely magical to be able to rapidly construct an instant 900-ton concrete (mostly sand, way too little American steel) bridge with self supporting spans of over 160'. With absolutely NO FEAR of post tensioning the entire structure while both vehicular and pedestrian traffic passed unimpeded underneath the entire thing. /s

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BUT WHAT DO WE KNOW?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We know that Southern Florida, and quite likely more than one or two other large municipalities and even an entire state or two in our country is rife with this type of corruption. People have died because of this particular wholesale level of incompetence/ineptness.

[TalBlack]

Sept 11 2001. Two planes were flown into the WTC and nobody even asked “who let the killers on the planes much less got an amswer.

[BobL]

Democrat response (to protect Obama):

“Why would those idiots drive right under the bridge when it obviously wasn’t supported properly.”

[Chad N. Freud]

“Hello, White Star Line? We’ve nust noticed the rivets used on the Titanic were sub-standard, but we don’t see it as a problem from a safety standpoint...”

—

I guess Obama was right: we didn’t build that bridge.

—

It was only only being held up by hope and changed.

[KC Burke]

After 52 years in the construction, I have seen a variety of things. A materials QC inspector might call up an Owner like this and leave an incidental message just to cover his but. An actual inspecting engineer would at least start an argument and chain of nasty emails and notices for a major concern.

In the last 20 years the problem is that the plans and specifications are followed without careful understanding — not that they are ignored. You might see something that lays out an ABC fast-track sequence, like this bridge element group, without any real careful procedure outlined.

Not too long ago I was building a building off a set of plans that showed a reinforced masonry wall on the second floor of a structure running along on top of a composite concrete deck with a main support beam below that deck but off to one side. There was no wall below the upper heavy masonry wall.

One of my junior PMs had written the subcontract with the masonry subcontractor and was coordinating his work segments. He was planning to have the mason start that wall a few days after the concrete was placed on the steel deck. I stopped their discussion and asked the mason when his shoring would start. He said, “what shoring, there’s none shown on the plans.”

That’s our problem. Starting out, in the 60s, I had a 78 year old laborer foreman who worked on his farm after work. He would have been asking about re-shoring along that line two days earlier with half the plans we had and he only finished the 8th grade.

Designers think that a general statement in the specs covers them from fully detailing all essentials and figuring out how something can even be built and contractors expect everything to be spelled out or its extra work.

We have designers that envision all sorts of needless frivolity in every structure and leave it to consultants and contractors to work it our. I have seen countless plans only 3/4ths finished issued for construction with walls that float in the air and giant pipes hanging off nothing.