Nylon holding up Kosciuszko shields
Metal-and-concrete shields that are supposed to protect the Kosciuszko Bridge from potential terror attacks are being held together by hundreds of nylon straps, The Post has learned.
Photos shot by The Post show that the shields around all 56 cables on the Queens-bound side of the bridge appear to have been reinforced with black strapping, with some shields also showing discoloration where other straps were replaced.
The Post counted a total of 339 black ratchet straps cinched around the two-part shields, some of which had lengthwise gaps between the pieces that were nearly two inches wide.
One device was being secured with 14 straps, and several shields were marked by a white, chalky buildup around their lower edges.
A pending federal suit filed earlier this year alleges that the anti-terror armor was plagued by “aggressive corrosion” and “severe delamination and separation of the parts” that posed “a severe and imminent threat to public safety, the implications of which cannot be overstated.”
Maryland-based plaintiff Hardwire LLC claims in court papers that blame for the screw-up lies with a former employee who stole the company’s technology and misused it to underbid Hardwire for a contract to build and install the shields.
A day after exclusively reporting on the suit in March, The Post spotted defendant Irvin “Skip” Ebaugh IV and an assistant tightening one of three metal straps around a shield with sections that didn’t appear flush.
At the time, a spokesman for the bridge’s construction company — a joint venture of Skanska, Kiewit and ECCO III — claimed that work “was previously scheduled and identified in a routine fall 2019 bridge inspection.”
Hardwire founder and CEO George Tunis told The Post that the Kosciuszko’s cable-protection job appeared to be “an engineering disaster in progress.”
“The armor parts are literally hanging by straps,” he said. “They are a threat to the public if they fall off.”
The state Department of Transportation, which oversaw the replacement of the 80-yearold Kosciuszko, has previously called the allegations in Hardwire’s suit “categorically false” and said the straps that Ebaugh installed in March had “nothing to do with the lawsuit or the safety of the bridge.”
A spokesman for the DOT said Monday that the bridge is “100 percent safe.”
SKE Joint Venture did not returned a request for comment. A defense lawyer said that Ebaugh “has no comment at this time.”