State wrong to duck blame in bridge collapse

Barely after rescuers had begun searching for bodies under Florida International University’s collapsed pedestrian bridge last Thursday, Gov. Rick Scott’s administration had begun its own political rescue mission.

The Florida Department of Transportation issued a “preliminary fact sheet” absolving the state of any blame. The release twice stated that the bridge was not an FDOT project. The project’s principals, the agency said, “are all under contract with FIU.” The release claimed that the state played only a minor role. All post-installation testing “was the responsibility of the FIU design build team.”

When Scott came to Miami on Thursday night, he joined the choir. “It’s not an FDOT project,” the governor said. “It’s an FIU project.”

Based on reporting by Mary Ellen Klas of The Miami Herald, however, the state’s self-absolution was preliminary. Klas revealed that FDOT was on the committee that approved the project team of MCM and FIGG Bridge Group. FDOT helped to choose the consulting firm that oversaw construction, to ensure that the bridge was built safely. FDOT officials attended regular meetings related to the bridge and helped to pick its design and location. FDOT consulted on key details. In addition, the morning of the collapse the state’s project director attended a meeting with the design engineer on the bridge’s progress.

Another “fact” in the FDOT release is at issue. The state claimed that the company FIGG hired to review the concrete construction did not have the required pre-qualification. Two days later, however, FIU officials showed documentation that the firm, Louis Berger, had been qualified for the work. According to the Herald, FDOT has not explained that seeming discrepancy.

“Experts who have worked closely with FDOT for years,” the Herald story read, “say that although the early narrative shows state transportation officials may not have had a role in the engineering decisions for the project, or the daily inspections, their oversight role was significant and involved many layers of oversight.

Florida International University President Mark Rosenberg told the Herald, “We’ve had a good relationship with FDOT. I just want to make it clear. So we’re anxious to find out more about what they think we didn’t do. Because they’ve been involved at every step.”

You can see why Scott and his people are worried.

Last September, it was 12 dead residents at a Hollywood nursing home after Hurricane Irma. The governor had made a point of giving his private cellphone number to such facilities, but the nursing home said its calls went unanswered.

Last month, it was 14 dead students and three dead staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Though Scott immediately blamed the FBI for failing to follow up on a warning about gunman Nikolas Cruz, the Florida Department of Children and Families also had contact with Cruz and didn’t intervene.

And now it’s six dead people because of the FIU bridge collapse. All those victims in those three tragedies — and questions about what the state did or didn’t do — present a potential problem for the famously antiregulation governor if he runs this year for the U.S. Senate.

FDOT took further evasive action in the form of a follow-up release Friday evening. The state said a FIGG engineer had called the agency two days before the collapse and left a voicemail on a landline phone. The engineer, Denney Pate, reported “some cracking” on the north end of the bridge. Though Pate said “from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there,” he called the cracking “not good and something’s going to have to be, you known, done to repair that.”

The FDOT employee whom Pate called did not return to his office until Friday, the day after the collapse. FDOT did acknowledge that an agency consultant had met with the project team the morning of the collapse but that no one discussed any “life-safety issues.”

Many parties have much at stake in the collapse and the investigation of how it happened. FIU started a center to teach the Accelerated Bridge Construction technique that was used for the pedestrian bridge, though the center was not part of that project. MCM is well connected in Miami-Dade County. FIGG has designed the Sunshine Skyway and other notable projects.

Under scrutiny with FIU, however, is the state. Why, for example, would that employee not check his voicemail for three days? What discussion took place between FIU and FDOT over whether to close Tamiami Trail during stress tests that preceded the collapse? Did the state fail to exercise oversight?

Like those nursing home deaths and like the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the bridge collapse was preventable. It’s not just an FIU investigation. It’s an FDOT investigation.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.