Please stop about the pedestrian bridge collapse

[genxlib]

Somebody fucked up. Somebody fucked up big time.

But the constant recriminations and insinuations about all those involved is really unhelpful. We don't know what happened yet so we don't know who fucked up. We will find out and they will pay dearly. Until we do, this speculation is just pointless and irresponsible.

For the record, this hit close to home for me. I do work for FIU and know many of the people who got a terrible phone call today. I have worked with that Contractor years ago and know they are qualified to do this work. I am familiar with the bridge engineer and they have a reputation that more than qualifies them. Perhaps most importantly i have designed a number of pedestrian bridges including one on this scale.

Sometimes people fuck up and make disastrous tragic mistakes. It doesn't have to be evil or nefarious.

Sometimes they just fuck up.

[Ron Green]

1. I think the tragedy is that a ped bridge had to be built in the first place,

to save people from that dangerous suburban traffic. We’re still developing like it’s 1970.

[Awsi Dooger]

4. FIU has steadily expanded

The land was an airport when I was a young kid. Years later it was a two-year school only. Kids would go to Miami-Dade for their first two years and then transfer to FIU as upperclassmen. Finally it got approved as a four year university and really took off.

Decades ago I never thought of FIU bordering 8th St. The working reality was significantly further south than that. But as the university needs grew the land availability was in that direction. The other side of campus is used for the local Youth Fair activities, which is a major tradition so that area is kept relatively open.

8th St. is very high trafficked. It feeds the western suburbs in that central part of town. Miami is layered so that every 16th street is a major east/west thoroughfare. So 8th St (Calle Ocho) is huge, then 24th (Coral Way), 40th (Bird), 56th (Miller), 72nd (Sunset), 88th (Kendall), and so forth. FIU is crammed in there between Coral Way and 8th St.

FIU's problem is it really couldn't expand west because the turnpike extension is right there, yards away from campus. The east side is developed. South is residential. Only option was north, and eventually they ran into 8th St.

[vanamonde]

62. Well said.

[dchill]

2. "It doesn't have to be evil or nefarious."

No, but stupid is just as bad. Especially in a case like this.

[LAS14]

36. No. Stupid is not just as bad. And "mistake" doesn't necessarily mean "stupid." nt

[dchill]

41. I just meant that the result is the same.

And, usually, no one admits to being stupid. Which is evil, in a case like this.

[LAS14]

42. See my response #37. We don't want to require people to admit to "stupid." We...

..want them to admit to "mistake" so it can be corrected.

[former9thward]

57. No one will ever admit to a "mistake".

Too much liability.

[Xipe Totec]

3. 70s scandal haunts efforts to fix UMass garage

According to a special state commission set up later to investigate corruption and shoddy workmanship associated with that project (UMass Boston underground Garage) and others, the selection of MBM “was made directly by Administration and Finance Commissioner Donald R. Dwight” — an appointee of then-governor Francis W. Sargent. In a scathing report that fills nine volumes and was issued Dec. 31, 1980, the special commission, headed by Amherst College president John Ward, found that bribery, extortion, and political favoritism were a normal part of doing business in Massachusetts, under both Democrats and Republicans.

Two state senators were convicted and jailed for accepting cash payoffs connected to the UMass Boston project. And, in the aftermath of scandal, the state contracting system was reformed. But no one in the executive branch — which was responsible for selecting the UMass Boston project manager — was ever held accountable for any corruption that happened on their watch. Dwight refused to testify before the Ward Commission and even fled the state to avoid it. Sargent said he couldn’t remember any discussions involving MBM.

This would be ancient Massachusetts history except for the costly reminder that links the past to the present: the crumbling parking garage that still sprawls beneath the campus at UMass Boston. Over decades, the low quality cement used to build it disintegrated, exposing steel rods to salty ocean air and further weakening the structure. For safety reasons, the garage was shut down in 2006. No one fixed it because no one wanted to pay for it. The cost of demolishing the garage, along with several attached buildings, is now expected to reach at least $150 million, according to a report by the Globe’s Laura Krantz.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/04/27/scandal-haunts-efforts-fix-umass-garage/XI1nKMdoIDIRHElkx25aIO/story.html

So, yea, somebody fucked this one up too.

[genxlib]

9. I'm not saying evil and nefarious doesn't happen

I'm saying it is pointless and irresponsible to jump to those conclusions.

There are a lot more checks and balances built into the system nowadays to ensure better work. Much if it is due to previous failures like the one you cite. Even so, it still could happen.

There will be investigations from every angle that will determine what happened. It is just not useful to assume the worst before we know anything.

[Xipe Totec]

16. So give me a rosy scenario - One where a bridge falls on eight cars and it's nobody's fault. nt

[FSogol]

22. Let's not argue about who killed who....

[Xipe Totec]

24. LOL!

[genxlib]

49. Who said anything about rosy

For that matter, who said anything about it not being somebody's fault. My first second and last statement in the OP is that somebody fucked up.

However, that still doesn't necessarily make it evil or nefarious.

Drunk driving is evil
Driving deliberately into a crowd is nefarious.
Losing control on a wet road is neither of those things.

Yet they can all kill people. It can still be someone's fault but there does not have to be an evil intention to it.

[Blue_true]

5. A few questions.

I don't have photos, but look like they were putting a 170 feet span across an 8 lane freeway. The span didn't seem to have support along that 170 feet. I noticed cable reenforcement from one end.

Questions:
Do you know how the span was constructed?

Did the concrete have metal reenforcing?

If there was reenforcing, do you know the design of the reenforcement?

How tall was the cable tower? Are you familiar with the load the cables were designed to handle?

[genxlib]

10. I am not familiar with the specifics of the design

But rest assured there was reinforcement in the concrete. Concrete simply isn't suitable for spanning members without it. It seems like it was post-tensioned steel but it was definitely there. Recent reports I have seen this morning say they were adjusting the post-tensioning cables when it failed.

Early on, someone familiar with the job told me the cables and tower were only decorative and not structural. I do not know if that is true or not. I would have assumed they were structural but I am sure we will find out shortly.

[Blue_true]

32. Having decorative cables and a restraining tower for a structure like that would be insane.

The support seemed cantilevered, which should mean that the tower and cables were enormously important.

I assumed that the concrete has metal reenforcement, but the design and layout of that reenforcement would be more important than it just being in place within the concrete.

[genxlib]

54. I agree with you

And I have heard other conflicting stories about whether they were decorative or structural.

However, it is not uncommon to have structures designed to meet loading under various configurations as they are assembled. Even if the cables were structural for the end condition, the base truss could have been designed to be stable under dead load. Then the fully assembled structure would carry dead and live loads (ie the people). Of course, something went horribly wrong somewhere.

[Blue_true]

64. The pictures that I saw looked like the large concrete piece had re-bar support.

I did not see any large metal pieces in the concrete that collapsed. I also noticed that the highway had a 30-50 feet middle divider that was around 2 yards wide. It seem to me that designers could have a center support there and ran re-enforcement beams on both sides on the center beam, that would have helped, IMO.

It will be interesting what the structure evaluation report says, I trully hope that prevents another tragedy like this one.

[uncle ray]

6. I'm reminded for about 9 hours every day what a thankless job engineering is.

i have little doubt, once all is said and done, there will have been multiple human failures that contributed, and most of them will have been poor judgement by someone who wanted the job done cheaper or quicker. engineers know that a product that fails, fails to be cheap or quick.

[genxlib]

12. Unfortunately

It is easy to feel that way sometimes.

To me it seems the problem has always been that Engineers are never noticed when we do the job well. It is taken for granted that the structure will defy gravity, that the water will run, that the lights will come on, etc. It is only when things go horribly wrong when someone notices that an Engineer was involved.

[MFM008]

7. Cheap materials

Substandard.
Someone ok'd it.

[The_REAL_Ecumenist]

8. That was EXACTLY what I thought.. It was the first thing that ran through my

mind. SUCH a tragedy...

[genxlib]

11. This is what I am talking about.

It is speculation that assumes the worst with no particular reason for you to believe that.

The bridge is concrete. This site is a few miles from the plants that make cement and excavate aggregate. It might be the most cost effective location in the world to get concrete. The cost difference between good concrete and bad concrete would have been inconsequential on a project like this.

There could be dozens of reasons this might have happened and cheap materials would not have made my top 10

[stevenleser]

29. Speculation? The bridge collapsed. Either there was bad engineering or bad materials or both.

What about this makes you want to shut down discussion on a discussion forum?

[genxlib]

55. You answered your own question

"It could be x or y" makes it speculation to jump out and say x is to blame.

I don't want to shut down discussion. I want the discussion to be about what is actually known.

[LexVegas]

13. Incompetence. nt

[Javaman]

14. Thank you!

I work for a large Architectural firm. I agree.

I choose to wait for the results of the investigation before blame is placed.

[Blue_Adept]

15. Sadly, it's human nature to try and assign blame as a kind of defense

You see it with plane crashes or the big conspiracy theory things for events that are clearly understood.

There's nothing I can do in regards to this event except to learn. It was interesting reading about the accelerated process through a few media outlets having seen it done here last year in Boston when a section of the highway was built off site and then put into place in a day. It was a fascinating project and hearing that there've been 800 of these done so far across the country raised my interest even more, because it does make a lot of sense. There are projects that will always be done "in the moment" and can't be done off site. Even my small town had its one bridge built off site, though it required months of breakdown of the previous one and putting in all the proper supports for the new one. I loved watching that thing roll through town and getting prepped.

Engineers have to account for a billion variables and as we see, the majority of the time it comes up aces. Nobody knows what the point of failure here was yet, just like in a plane crash or a train crash. But the speculators and "couch experts" know all and infect others with their "knowledge."

[NCTraveler]

17. What outfit was tightening the supports? nt.

[alarimer]

18. I have my suspicions about this quick new bridge-building method.

I'm guessing someone took shortcuts somewhere and that is the only reason it works (or rather, doesn't work).

Clearly something went wrong and someone (or many someones) is too blame. Well-engineered bridges don't just collapse of their own accord. Something hits it (Mississippi River), someone failed to account for something (Galloping Gertie) or it fails because age (I-35 in Minnesota).

[dalton99a]

20. Accelerated Bridge Construction died a spectacular death yesterday

They'll probably rename it something else

[Blue_Adept]

28. You build 800 structures in this way over 8 years

But one incident will kill it.

Well, that's how we go in the US. Any sort of problem and we just retreat from everything.

Look at how far behind we fell after the Challenger explosion. Shut us down and crippled us for years after plenty of cutbacks already.

[hunter]

43. In hindsight the Space Shuttle *WAS* stupid... it was hype and politics turned literally deadly.

They'll never be another spacecraft like the Space Shuttle and that's a good thing.

Because of the Space Shuttle, it is now considered best practice to send heavy cargo into space on dangerously large unmanned rockets, and to send people into space on smaller much less risky craft.

Prefabricated bog standard concrete overpasses are a very well established technology. They are cheap and they just work. Alas, there's no glamour in them, nothing to hype.

They could have gotten their signature "postcard" overpass by decorating a conventional structure. It's possible the replacement structure will be conventional construction and there's nothing wrong with that.

[MineralMan]

19. I'm afraid people are not going to stop.

We all depend on infrastructure and the people who build those bridges and other projects. There should be zero chance that a brand new bridge would collapse like this one did. Zero. In this instance, that did happen. Why it happened is going to be determined, probably, and whatever the reason, that should never have happened.

There is fault in this collapse. It wasn't simply a "mistake" that happened. For any such structure, engineering and construction people are responsible for the project being completed safely. That didn't happen. Instead, it collapsed, killing a number of people. To ask that people not to wonder what happened and why that brand new bridge collapsed is asking too much.

Responsibility for this will fall on someone, because someone will be found to have been responsible. We don't know who that is, yet, but we will find out. In the meantime, people will ask questions and be suspicious.

It's not a mistake. It is a failure of engineering and/or construction. Neither you nor I knows which.

[Kentonio]

23. I think you need to go and look up what the word 'mistake' means.

Engineers and construction workers are humans. Humans make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes kill people. In the meantime the op is simply asking that people wait and see what the actual cause is, rather than leaping to wild conclusions not supported by any evidence.

[MineralMan]

25. I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

Except for the conclusion that new bridges should not collapse and kill people. New bridges do not collapse unless mistakes were made. Obviously. Just as guns do not "go off" by mistake. A bridge collapse like this one is not an "accident," either.

There is fault here. I can say that because brand new bridges do not collapse on their own accord. If they do collapse, there is fault involved, because that's the business of bridge-builders. They build bridges that do not collapse.

I do not know the reason why this bridge collapsed, in mechanical terms. I am not a bridge engineer or construction company. I do know that it was not supposed to collapse. I also know that once the reason it collapsed is known, someone is going to be held responsible for that. That's pretty scary for everyone in charge of every aspect of this project.

The bridge collapsed. It should not have. It wasn't a "mistake." It was negligence on someone's part. Negligence is not a "mistake."

[Kentonio]

27. In other words you're not an expert in any way, shape or form

But you have decided you are fully qualified to make judgements about what is and isn't a mistake.

Ok then. I hope if you ever make a mistake that leads to tragedy, someone out there shows a little more compassion and a lot less of a judgemental attitude.

[MineralMan]

31. Negligence is not a mistake.

Sorry. I don't need to be an engineering expert to know that. Properly designed and constructed bridges do not fall by "mistake." They fall due to negligence.

[LAS14]

37. It's this kind of attitude that keeps people from participating...

... in efforts to find out what went wrong, so procedures can be improved.

If you don't allow for the possibility of "mistake," you can't have the kind of meetings they have in hospitals when something goes worng, where people have been encouraged to describe what really happened so procedures can be improved. Maybe someone picked up the wrong instrument because they were laid out in a confusing manner. Answer, do things to keep the instruments in good order. Don't fire the person who got confused.

Of course there's greed and negligence and.. and... but to not allow for "mistake" is to not allow for addressing the systems that promote mistakes.

[Kentonio]

39. +1

[hunter]

53. You're talking about Morbidity and Mortality conferencing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_and_mortality_conference

I've been present for a few of those, thankfully never in the spotlight, but well aware that it could be me next time who screws up. I've also learned some ugly shit about the intersections of politics and ideology with medical, engineering, and scientific practice.

What goes on inside such a conference is ideally uninfluenced by any of the inevitable gossip, ass-covering, speculation, etc., occurring on the outside.

I would hope that speculation here on DU is of no consequence in the official investigation of this incident.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

56. Yes, it is. Negligence is basically a legal term for mistake.

[alarimer]

59. My guess is someone took a shortcut somewhere.

There are mistakes, like unit conversion errors. Some of these were quite costly and potentially fatal.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/25845/quick-6-six-unit-conversion-disasters

Either it was deliberate (substituting cheaper materials that were flawed somehow or rushing the construction to meet some deadline/cost) or it was some error somewhere. Either way, when something like this happens, we can be sure someone is at fault. A brand new bridge doesn't just fall out of the sky of its own accord. Even old ones usually don't.

[mcar]

21. So sorry for what you are experiencing

This is a terrible tragedy that will be investigated. It makes sense to wait till the report of that comes out, rather than speculate.

[Hortensis]

26. Agree, Genxlib. Thanks for posting sense and decency.

[MaryMagdaline]

30. I respectfully disagree

This is an issue of safety, which is political issue. It's one of the reasons I support unions, worker's rights, consumer rights. It's one of the reasons I am a Democrat.

I live in South Florida and I live with the consequences of cheap labor, bought-off politicians and building inspectors, all types of criminality. The contractors show up at major projects with undocumented workers so that they can pay them less than American workers, and they (the contractors) cut corners every which way they can.

This bridge collapse was not an accident. Behind it all will be cheap materials, low-paid wages, a Miami-Dade Commissioner who was bought off, etc., etc.

THE REASON THESE COMPANIES GET THE BIDS IS BECAUSE THEY OUT-CHEAP THEIR COMPETITORS.

Hold their feet to the fire. I am sorry if an innocent contractor loses his reputation/ he needs to think about his reputation before the fact, not after people are dead.

[genxlib]

61. You are correct that a lot of all those things go on.

However, that does not necessarily mean it happened in this case.

For instance, it was not a County job so no Commissioners were involved. And it was a big aesthetic feature project so it may not have even been the low bid. Design-build projects with high design features usually are not.

All I am asking is to wait and see who is to blame before we pillory anyone.

Your last statement is puzzling to me. If they were innocent, what should they have done differently?

[MaryMagdaline]

63. By innocent I mean they did not KNOW that there was a defect

so they may be innocent in a criminal sense. However, if the subs did not do the job, and they failed to properly supervise, they are civilly responsible.

[LanternWaste]

33. That's not very accurate. The speculation is both benign and inconsequential.

"recriminations and insinuations about all those involved is really unhelpful..."

That's not very accurate. The speculation is both benign and inconsequential. It has zero effect on what happened, is happening or will happen.

However, I find it odd you allow us your own speculations while indicting others doing the same-- in effect, holding everyone else to a higher standard than you hold yourself to.

[genxlib]

58. Not sure what speculation you think I engaged in

And I am pretty sure the people that are being maligned would not find it benign and inconsequential.

[LovingA2andMI]

34. Strongly Disagree...

People Died. Period. That is the overriding factor and not the folks that "fucked up". We know that already and they deserve to be sued by each and every one of these families that lost a loved one or were seriously injured by their "fuck up".

[genxlib]

60. Absolutely no argument that lawsuits will happen and be warranted

And those lawsuits will be judged on what actually happened.

Not on what a bunch of people on the internet say happened.

I am not trying to absolve anyone of blame. I am trying to be patient to figure out who to blame.

[SoCalMusicLover]

35. Stress Test

Blame lies with whoever had the bright idea to hold a stress test during the day in middle of week, without closing traffic.

Who thought it would be smart to test whether a bridge would collapse, by doing the test while traffic passed below? Think about it, they were testing whether the bridge would collapse and cause a tragedy, by doing it when it could collapse and cause a tragedy. The whole reason for the stress test in the first place.

All they had to do was close traffic while doing the test, and there would have been ZERO casualties when it failed.

[LAS14]

38. Thanks for this post. Our whole society, and DU as a small bit of it, would...

...be better off if we eliminated knee-jerk judgments and really, really elevated the approach of waiting for facts.

[kcr]

40. They were doing a stress test with traffic underneath.

Sorry. I don't have to wait or be an expert to think that's massively stupid and you don't get to tell me what to do.

[mia]

44. Thanks for your perspective. I share your angst.

My daughter works for FIU and the 20 minutes I spent texting and calling her seemed so long. Thankfully, she was safe, but I still grieve for the victims. FIU is dear to my heart. I was a student there back in the days when there were only 2 buildings and the old airport tower stood beyond the parking lot. As a member of the Miami-Dade community for nearly 50 years, I feel that this accident will have long range effects that I hope will improve our ways of doing business for the better.

I imagine that the many who were involved in the processes that led up to this tragic accident are searching their souls. I don't think that any one person is to blame.

[Dreamer Tatum]

45. There is a cadre of DUers who've programmed their responses to certain things

if a train crashes or a bridge collapses, it CAN'T be the result of human error - there HAS to be a political reason for it.

It's sad and stupid, but that's DU.

[Awsi Dooger]

48. Exactly

And then scramble to find some Republican or Republican-led company to blame.

The other side does the same thing. I see in on political forums of sports sites I frequent. Right wingers now blame anything that goes wrong in California on Jerry Brown or the overall political slant of the state.

I don't understand the desperation either way.

[Dreamer Tatum]

50. Puerile tribalism

helps for me to remember that it's just the internet, where being wrong and stupid costs nothing.

[Initech]

46. This whole incident was a disaster from the get go.

Build it cheaply? Build it quickly? Build it with no inspections? Build it with unproven experimental materials? What could go wrong?

[BootinUp]

47. Stress test it with people underneath it

Don’t forget that. And then tighten the cables to try and save it while people are underneath it too.

[Initech]

51. It's almost like they were trying to get fired.

I mean really a normal person could not fuck up this badly if they had tried to do so. It sounded like a good idea on paper, but the actual execution of this will forever go down as one of the most spectacular fuck ups in human history.

[dalton99a]

52. "Don't you think we should stop the traffic?"

"Well, we're just fine tuning it"

"OK"

"He said it's OK"

....