Engineers discussed bridge crack

Firm said flaw no safety concern just hours before span fell

MIAMI — Hours before the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University on Thursday, the engineering company for the bridge held a meeting to discuss a crack on the structure, according to a statement from the university released early Saturday.

The engineering company, Figg Bridge Engineers, delivered a technical presentation on the crack, and “concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge,” the statement said.

The construction manager on the project and representatives from the university and the state Transportation Department attended the twohour meeting, which was led by Figg’s lead engineer on the project, W. Denney Pate.

Two days earlier, Pate left a voicemail message for the Transportation Department about “some cracking that’s been observed on the north end” of the bridge, according to a recording from the department released Friday. At both the meeting and in his message, Pate said the cracking did not present any safety issues.

The Transportation Department said the message was not heard until Friday morning. A spokesman for the agency, Dick Kane, said in an email that its representative at the meeting the day before, Alfredo Reyna, was a consultant whose role was chiefly to keep the project on schedule.

“While Reyna is a professional engineer, he does not have control over the project and relies on the expertise of the licensed engineer of record,” Kane said.

At no point during their communications, the department said, “did Figg or any member of the FIU design-build team ever communicate a life-safety issue.”

Whether the cracking contributed to the collapse, which killed at least six people in their cars on the eightlane street below the bridge, remains a key question in the investigation.

Construction crews were working on a diagonal beam at the north end of the structure at or about the time of the collapse, according to information the National Transportation Safety Board provided to local members of Congress. Workers were tightening cables that ran inside the beam.

Such adjustments, which engineers call “post-tensioning,” are common in concrete designs to fine-tune the structure once it is in place. In this case, however, it was not clear whether the cable-tightening was routine or an urgent undertaking in response to the discovery of the crack in the bridge.

Witnesses said the collapse appeared to start near the north end. But no one, including the National Transportation Safety Board, has so far placed any blame for the collapse on the cables or cable-tightening work.

Crews removed two cars Saturday morning and said they found three bodies, but officials said there were still at least two more victims beneath the rubble. Late in the day they recovered a third car, and Saturday night they said they believed all victims had been found.

Nevertheless, the search continued, police said late Saturday.

The Police Department identified the three victims in the two vehicles as Roland Fraga Hernandez; Oswald Gonzalez, 57; and Alberto Arias, 53.

One of the six victims, Navarro Brown, was part of the crew working on the bridge; he died at the hospital. Another, Alexa Duran, presumed dead in her car, was a freshman at Florida International University.

The number of known victims has not changed, Kemp said. “We anticipated that we would have three victims in those two vehicles,” he said.

Workers covered the vehicles in black sheeting and towed them to the medical examiner to identify the remains of any victims inside.

Police identified the first vehicle as a Jeep Cherokee, nearly flattened but still distinguishable by its front grill, according to videos by The Miami Herald and local television news outlets.

The second vehicle, crumpled almost beyond recognition, was a Chevrolet pickup. Cranes lifted the vehicles onto flatbed trucks, which were escorted to the medical examiner by a police motorcade.

The crews placed a white tent with black sheets along three sides to shield the vehicles from view while they were being pulled from under the concrete, according to The Herald video.

On the Florida International University campus, Joseph Smitha was walking around in a daze. His niece, Duran, remained under the debris of the bridge a block away.

Smitha, a 55-year-old auto parts manager, had spent the night in his truck after making the four-hour drive from Palm Harbor, Fla., fitfully mourning Duran, a freshman at the university.

“Her mom is a wreck,” he said. “I’ll never hear her say, ‘Hi, Uncle Joe,’ again. I know it’s not going to bring my niece back, but how did this happen?”