Caller reported cracks in bridge before collapse
Posted March 16, 2018 6:46 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MIAMI (NEWS 1130) – Florida’s Department of Transportation says an engineer left a voicemail two days before a catastrophic bridge failure to say some cracking had been found at one of the concrete span.
However, the agency says the voicemail left on a landline wasn’t heard by a state DOT employee until Friday because the employee was out of the office on an assignment.
In a transcript of the voicemail released Friday night, Denney Pate with FIGG Bridge Group says the cracking would need repairs “but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there so we’re not concerned about it from that perspective.
The pedestrian bridge at Florida International university collapsed Thursday, killing at least six people. Authorities are slowly removing the debris, looking for more victims.
Meanwhile, the company that designed the bridge is reportedly the same company that designed the new Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, after the old span collapsed more than 10 years ago.
FIGG Bridge Group said in a statement that it’s stunned by the collapse. The cause is under investigation, but authorities said Friday that cables were being tightened when it collapsed.
In 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13 people and injuring 145. After that tragedy, FIGG was selected to design the replacement bridge that’s currently in use.
The new pedestrian bridge in Miami was hailed as a technological innovation before it collapsed.
