Cracks found days before the Collapse of the Florida Bridge

Discovery of Cracks in Florida Bridge before Collapse

By: Dasanie Pena

    At the Florida International University in Miami, FL, the pedestrian bridge collapsed killing about 6 people. Days before the collapse, it is reported that the engineers had discovered cracks within the bridge. This brings about questions about the possibility of preventing the collapse and saving the lives lost. This bridge was constructed with a single truss within the middle of the bridge and support on the bottom of the bridge.

    There was a extremely important report from the lead engineer of the firm concerning the design of the bridge. They reported that a voicemail was left for a Florida Department of Transportation employee stating there have been discoveries of cracks in the bridge. However, the employee that was sent the voicemail was out of the office. The voicemail wasn't received by the employee till Friday. That was the day after the collapse. Yet the message to the employee stated that the crack which spanned cross the north side of the bridge but it wasn't considered to be safety concern.

“We’ve taken a look at it and, uh, obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done, but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there so we’re not concerned about it from that perspective,” said the engineer, W. Denney Pate. “Although obviously the cracking is not good and something’s going to have to be, you know, done to repair that.”

    The transportation department said on Friday that “the responsibility to identify and address life-safety issues and properly communicate them is the sole responsibility of the F.I.U. design-build team,” referring to Florida International University, which commissioned the bridge.

 On Friday, the search for survivors was called off and the attention was turned to the reasoning why the bridge failed. The bridge was worth 14 million dollars and was built at what is called “accelerated construction”. Instead of closing off roads in order to build the bridge, pieces of the bridge were built off site and brought over. Building a bridge at accelerated construction does not change the safety factor of the bridge. Yet the transportation of the pieces causes stress to different pieces of the bridge. It was also stated that all people involved in the process and design of the bridge were all from very influential firms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/us/florida-bridge-cracks.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FEngineering%20and%20Engineers&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection