Alert before fatal collapse
MIAMI — An engineer left a voicemail two days before a catastrophic bridge failure in Miami to say some cracking was found at one end of the concrete span, but the voicemail wasn’t picked up until after the collapse, Florida Department of Transportation officials said Friday.
The voicemail left on a landline wasn’t heard by a state DOT employee until Friday because the worker was out of the office on an assignment, the agency said.
In a transcript of the message released Friday night, Denney Pate with FIGG Bridge Group says the cracking would need repairs “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.”
The bridge collapsed Thursday, killing at least six people. Authorities are slowly removing the debris, looking for more victims.
NTSB officials said workers were trying to strengthen a diagonal member on the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University when it collapsed.
Cables supporting the 950-ton bridge were being tightened following a “stress test” when it collapsed, authorities said.
Scheduled to open in 2019, the bridge would have provided safe passage over a canal and six lanes of traffic and created a showpiece architectural feature connecting the campus of FIU with the community of Sweetwater, where many students live.
The $14.2 million project was supposed to take advantage of a faster, cheaper and safer method of bridgebuilding promoted by the university.
The crossing was put in place March 10, five days before the collapse.
When finished, the span would have been supported from above, with a tall, off-center tower and cables attached to the walkway. That tower had not yet been installed, and it was unclear what builders were using as temporary supports.