Engineer shared FIU bridge was cracked in voicemail message that went unnoticed until a day after collapse
An engineer reported cracks on a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in a voicemail message that went unnoticed until the day after it collapsed.
W. Denney Pate, a lead engineer with the Figg Bridge Group behind the $14.2 million construction project, left a voicemail message for a Florida Department of Transportation employee two days before the bridge crashed onto a busy roadway in Miami, killing six people and injuring 10 others, according to the FDOT.
However, the message was left on a landline while the FDOT employee was out of the office and the information was not relayed until Friday.
It remains unclear whether the cracks played any role in the bridge’s collapse.
“Hey Tom, this is Denney Pate with FIGG bridge engineers. Calling to, uh, share with you some information about the FIU pedestrian bridge and some cracking that’s been observed on the north end of the span, the pylon end of that span we moved this weekend,” Pate said in the newly released recording.
“Um, so, uh, we’ve taken a look at it and, uh, obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there …”
The 950-ton bridge, which was installed within six hours on Saturday, was heralded as an engineering marvel before it collapsed just five days later.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that crews were conducting a stress test on the bridge at the time, even though the FDOT said it was not aware of the test and did not issue a request to shut down all eight lanes of Southwest 8th St.
The FDOT also met with Pate shortly before the collapse and placed the blame on the design build team in a statement issued on Friday.
“The responsibility to identify and address life-safety issues and properly communicate them is the sole responsibility of the FIU design build team ... FIGG and the FIU design build team never alerted FDOT of any life-safety issue regarding the FIU pedestrian bridge prior to collapse,” the statement read.
FIU student Alex Duran was identified Friday as one of the six victims killed in the catastrophe.
She was driving under the bridge when the rubble came crashing down on her Toyota SUV, trapping her underneath, according to the Miami Herald.