Florida community mourns the 6 killed in bridge collapse
MIAMI – When Sofia Rincon was asked to honor her friend who died when a pedestrian bridge collapsed at Florida International University, she decided to sing Rihanna’s Stay.
That was the song Rincon, 19, and Alexa Duran, 18, sang together on karaoke night on a cruise last year. Wednesday, Rincon sang it solo during a campus vigil to remember her friend, one of six people who died in last week’s bridge collapse.
“I want to sing this song for Alexa because she’s always going to stay in my heart,” Rincon said in front of hundreds of mourners.
Six days after the accident, many questions remain over the failure of the 950-ton partially constructed bridge, which crashed down on cars passing underneath.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading an inquiry to figure out what went wrong, and the Miami-Dade Police Department is conducting a homicide investigation to determine whether criminal charges will be filed. The first civil lawsuit on behalf of a man who was injured in the collapse was filed Monday.
The investigations seek to determine whether cracks spotted in the structure in the days before the collapse March 15 should have halted construction and closed the busy road underneath.
Wednesday, students and relatives of the victims demanded answers. Michelle Bayona, 30, who lives in New York City and was a cousin of Duran’s, cried as she expressed her anger.
“What happened to her, nobody deserves to go like that,” she said. “I hate it. I hope they get these people for what they did. They shouldn’t have let this happen. They shouldn’t have let those people drive under that bridge.”
Most of Wednesday’s vigil focused on the lives of those who died.
Mourners signed posters to express their condolences. They laid white flowers on a temporary memorial placed near the accident site.
A video showed the names and faces of the six victims: Alberto Arias, Navaro Brown, Brandon Brownfield, Alexa Duran, Rolando Fraga Hernandez and Osvaldo Gonzalez.
Krista Schmidt, president of the student government association, shared the sentiments of her fellow students when she talked about how easily they could have been on that list.
“We all take that road every day. We all have passed under there at some point,” Schmidt said. “You stop to think, ‘That could’ve been me.’ ”
Founded in 1965, Florida International University has grown into the fourth-most populous university in the nation. Its 55,000 students place FIU on the list of largest schools alongside century-old institutions such as Ohio State and Texas A&M.
FIU opened a law school in 2004 and a medical school in 2009. The school, tucked into a suburban corner of Miami, has grown so quickly that it is continually trying to find more land to expand to accommodate its local and international students.
That’s where the pedestrian bridge came into play. FIU is a commuter school, but it built dormitories in recent decades to try to create a more traditional campus. As space ran out, a private firm built a 15-story apartment building across the street from FIU’s main campus. The pedestrian bridge was designed to ensure safe passage over the seven-lane road.
“Undoubtedly the darkest day in FIU’s history,” said Larry Lunsford, vice president of student affairs.
“They shouldn’t have let this happen. They shouldn’t have let those people drive under that bridge.”
Michelle Bayona Cousin of Alexa Duran, 18