This FIU bridge was designed as a cable-stayed bridge.
Posted on 03/15/2018 11:32:16 AM PDT by Red Badger
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.
Wouldn’t zero slump be awfully dry?
Tim Elfrink, Brittany ShammasMarch 15, 2018
Police and fire-rescue personnel are still on the scene at FIU, where multiple people died in the rubble of the 950-ton bridge, which crumbled onto SW Eighth Street traffic. Investigators will likely spend weeks sorting out what went wrong on the project, which was described by the school as a state-of-the-art bridge made with new, high-tech materials.
Munilla Construction Management, a South Florida firm, beat out three other finalists to win the bid to build FIU's bridge, which was part of a $14.2 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The firm partnered with Figg Bridge Group, which is headquartered in Tallahassee and has worked on iconic projects such as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa.
Munilla was accused in Miami-Dade Civil Court March 5 of severely injuring a TSA employee at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport because of shoddy work. According to the lawsuit, Munilla — which has a major contract to expand the airport — built a "makeshift bridge" through an area where airport workers must walk to reach restrooms.
Jose Perez, a TSA worker, was walking on the bridge October 20, 2016, when it "broke under [his] weight" and sent him falling to the ground.
"They built this makeshift bridge in the area where all the employees work, and it was poorly done. He fell and hurt himself really badly," says Tesha Allison, a lawyer representing Perez. "He had multiple broken bones and damage to his spine... They did shoddy work."
For more photos of the FIU bridge collapse, click here. The FIU project isn't the first major bridge built by Figg to collapse in recent years. A Figg-assembled span in Virginia fell apart in June 2012 while under construction. Workers were installing a 90-ton concrete portion of the South Norfolk Jordan Bridge when it dropped 40 feet onto railroad tracks below, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
Four workers suffered minor injuries, but state regulators later said it was pure luck that no one was killed.
"They were fortunate that the injuries were not more serious," Jay Withrow, director of the legal support division for the Department of Labor and Industry, told the Virginian-Pilot.
Figg was fined $28,000 by the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, which found the company had violated several safety rules. It had failed to gain written consent from a manufacturer before modifying a girder used in construction. The company was also cited for not doing daily, weekly, and monthly inspections of the girder; not providing adequate training for using the equipment; and not having certain safety procedures in place for its maintenance and repair, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
The company's manager on that project, W. Jay Rohleder, said in a written statement to the Virginian-Pilot that the matter had no bearing on the bridge's stability. "The incident that occurred during construction was a construction equipment property damage issue that had nothing to do with the final bridge," Rohleder said.
Figg was later sued in federal court by the owner of the railroad tracks, Norfolk and Portsmouth Railroad Company. That case was dismissed with prejudice in December 2013.
Munilla has yet to respond to Perez's lawsuit in court; an operator at the company said no one was available to comment today. But around 3 p.m., the company tweeted a response to the tragedy.
pic.twitter.com/ehWhNcJd5d
— Munilla Construction (@WeAreMCM) March 15, 2018 Figg also released a statement, via the Fort Myers News-Press:
"Our deepest sympathies are with all those affected by this accident. We will fully cooperate with every appropriate authority in reviewing what happened and why. In our 40-year history, nothing like this has ever happened before. Our entire team mourns the loss of life and injuries associated with this devastating tragedy, and our prayers go out to all involved.”
This FIU bridge was designed as a cable-stayed bridge.
Idiot Governor Moonbeam is ecstatic.
Is this a conservative school?
That was when they were moving it in place. Those were just bridge carriers and were removed after putting the bridge on top of the abutments. There wasn’t any support above or below the span at the time of collapse.
Yes. But you can add super plastizers to make it workable.
But then why so dry? Faster setup?
I see where the main suspension tower was going to be and it was not in the center. It was a third or quarter bridge length from one terminus. Cable stayed?.... Would have been less expensive to have two sets of pillars, where the highway median strip is and where the suspension tower was going to be. I am sure that tower’s pillar was in place but obviously not (yet) the cable tower.
Confucius say — Two sets pillar and bridge no fallee down and taxpayers no get screwed.
They installed it on Saturday. They probably figured things could wait til next week to put in the support cables. Bad guess, I guess.
oh yow. hang it on manafort?.....then trump? Is this a false flag?
Strength and setup
I don’t see them either. Clear as day- they are not there.
Actually, they have both architecture and engineering. I guess they were busy teaching and not watching the bridge being built.
https://www.fiu.edu/academics/colleges-schools/index.html
I have nothing against properly designed and constructed suspension systems. They work well all over the place and the elements are “up there” out of the way of traffic. With any kind of permanent ground piers you’re going to get at least a 25% reduction in traffic capacity and a lot more cost.
That's the term I couldn't recall .. thanks :-)
What typically can happen with a higher water content on structural concrete is if you work it too much and the water will come to the top and you get that fine creamy Crete. This will crack easy and flake off
Cuban exile family’s firm wins $66M contract to build Guantánamo base school.
Even people with higher IQ have the thinking skills of an earthworm. Then again, even an earthworm tries to evade danger.
One time I was working with my young idiot brother-in-law to remove a large downed tree across my mother-in-law's backyard fence. He thought he was smart, working towards a university degree and being a smart-ass. Told him I would work the chain-saw, he said he knew how to work one, etc., but probably never handled one. Cut away a lot of branches into mil's yard. Anyway, I used a couple come-along winches and cables to pull the tree up off the fence, to drop it into mil's yard before cutting it up. Before it reached the upright point of dropping, I went many yards back and away with a pull rope. Told him he might want to join me. Looked at me puzzled, but then came. Tree trunk dropped right where he was formerly standing. Sheepishly looks at me says "thanks...".
Sometimes you can't teach common sense, you just need to keep some people from doing any dangerous work. (And many of those idiots then become reporters.)
What you posted here is a nationwide trend to dumb down higher education, even in the STEM fields where competition and quality were once the hallmark of these programs. We in the STEM fields were fully aware of the useless degrees that were being generated in many areas of liberal arts decades ago. We all talked about some of these courses a simpleton could easily ace. At least a third of the students in higher education have absolutely no business being there. Many of them barely got out of high school.
Internet rumor is that a crane was lifting something as the bridge was undergoing a “stress test” when it collapsed.
Seems unlikely to a layman like me that you would do this while traffic is flowing underneath, but what do I know.
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