Collapse victim’s uncle rages at ‘ incompetence’
MIAMI — As crews began removing bodies from beneath a collapsed pedestrian bridge Saturday, a victim’s uncle raged against what he called the “complete incompetence” and “colossal failure” that allowed people to drive beneath the unfinished concrete span.
“Why they had to build this monstrosity in the first place to get children across the street?” said an anguished Joe Smitha, whose niece, Alexa Duran, was crushed in Thursday’s collapse at Florida International University. “Then they decided to stress test this bridge while traffic was running underneath it?”
Authorities say at least six people were killed when the structure fell onto a busy six-lane road connecting the campus to the community of Sweetwater. Crews removed two cars containing three bodies Saturday, but officials said there were still at least two more victims beneath the rubble.
The Miami-Dade Police Department confirmed the names of four victims Saturday. Rolando Fraga Hernandez and his gold Jeep Cherokee were pulled from the wreckage early Saturday, followed by the bodies of Oswald Gonzalez, 57, and Alberto Arias, 54, inside a white Chevy truck. Navarro Brown was pulled from the rubble Thursday and died at a hospital.
Authorities have not released Duran’s name, but her family has said she died. The FIU freshman was studying political science.
The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed that crews were applying what’s known as “post-tensioning force” on the bridge before the failure. Authorities are investigating whether cracking that was reported just before the span fell contributed to the accident.
Experts interviewed by The Associated Press were mixed on the significance of those reported cracks.
Amjad Aref, a professor with the University of Buffalo’s Institute of Bridge Engineering, said they should have been “a big red flag.” But Ralph Verrastro, principal of Naples-based Bridging Solutions, was not surprised to hear about cracks and said it was not necessarily a problem.
Two days before the collapse, an engineer with the design firm left a voicemail to say some cracking had been 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. In a transcript released Friday night, Denney Pate with FIGG Bridge Group said the cracking would need repairs but the company didn’t think it was a safety issue.
In a statement Saturday, university officials said representatives of FIU and FDOT met with a FIGG engineer for two hours Thursday morning to discuss the cracking and determined that there was no safety issue. The bridge fell soon afterward.
In a news release late Friday, FIGG Bridge Engineers said it “continues to work diligently” to determine the cause of the collapse, and is examining the steps its team has taken. It added, “The evaluation was based on the best available information at that time and indicated that there were no safety issues.” It also asked for time to accurately determine what led to the accident.