Search for victims — and answers
As Florida authorities work to identify the people who died in yesterday’s catastrophic bridge collapse, state and federal investigators will begin the task of figuring out how and why the fiveday-old span failed.
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey said yesterday that his crew was using high-tech listening devices, trained sniffing dogs and search cameras in a race to find anyone still alive in the rubble. The US$14.2 million ($19.6m) pedestrian bridge was supposed to open next year as a safe way for students to cross the busy road. It linked the community of Sweetwater with the campus of Florida International University.
“We have to remove some of this piece by piece. It’s very unstable,” Downey said.
Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez acknowledged the likelihood of finding more victims under the rubble is slim.
“We know that there’s going to Florida bridge disaster be a negative outcome at the end of the day,” Perez said.
Four people were found dead and at least nine others were injured and taken to local hospitals; officials at one point said 10 were injured.
Florida Governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio attended the evening briefing.
Rubio said the public and the families of the dead and injured deserve to know “what went wrong”. Scott added that an investigation will get to the bottom of “why this happened and what happened”. He said that if anyone did anything wrong, “we will hold them accountable”.
A National Transportation Safety Board team was expected to begin its investigation today.
Rubio noted the pedestrian bridge was intended to be an innovative and “one-of-a-kind engineering design”.
An accelerated construction method was supposed to reduce risks to workers and pedestrians and minimise traffic disruption, the university said. The school has long been interested in this kind of bridge design; in 2010, it opened The ABC Centre — ABC standing for accelerated bridge construction — to help bridge professionals. Other universities around the country partnered with the university to “provide the transportation industry with the tools needed to effectively and economically utilise the principles of ABC to enhance mobility and safety, and produce safe, environmentally friendly, longlasting bridges.”
Renderings showed a tall, off-centre tower with cables attached to the walkway to support it. When the bridge collapsed, the main tower had not yet been installed, and it was unclear what the builders were using as temporary supports.
The project was a collaboration between MCM Construction, a Miamibased contractor, and Figg Bridge Design, based in Tallahassee. Figg is responsible for the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay.
Figg issued a statement Thursday saying the company was “stunned” by the collapse and promising to cooperate with investigations.
“In our 40-year history, nothing like this has ever happened before,” the company’s statement said. “Our entire team mourns the loss of life and injuries associated with this devastating tragedy, and our prayers go out to all involved.”
MCM Construction Management, which is building the bridge, posted a message to the company’s Facebook page promising “a full investigation to determine exactly what went wrong”.
Robert Bea, a professor of engineering and construction management at the University of California, Berkeley, said it was too early to know exactly what happened, but the decision to use what the bridge builders called an “innovative installation” was risky, especially because the bridge spanned a heavily travelled thoroughfare.
“Innovations take a design firm into an area where they don’t have applicable experience, and then we have another unexpected failure on our hands,” Bea said after reviewing the bridge’s design and photos of the collapse.
The university community, along with Sweetwater and county officials, held a “bridge watch party” last weekend. That’s when the span was lifted from its temporary supports, rotated 90 degrees across an eight-lane thoroughfare and lowered into what was supposed to be its permanent position over the busy road.
University president Mark Rosenberg said during a news conference that tests were being done yesterday. Authorities said two construction workers were on the bridge when it collapsed; it’s unclear what the tests were or if they contributed to the failure.
“This bridge was about goodness, not sadness,” Rosenberg said. “Now we’re feeling immense sadness, uncontrollable sadness. And our hearts go out to all those affected, their friends and their families. We’re committed to assist in all efforts necessary, and our hope is that this sadness can galvanise the entire community to stay the course, a course of goodness, of hope, of opportunity.” AP