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U.S. NEWS Monday 19 March 2018

Bridge victim's grieving uncle lashes out at 'incompetence'

By JENNIFER KAY 54, were found inside a of those reported cracks. surprised to hear about the concrete span, but the
ALLEN G. BREED white Chevy truck. Amjad Aref, a professor cracks, and said it was not voicemail wasn’t picked
Associated Press Navarro Brown was pulled with the University of Buf- necessarily a problem. up until after the collapse,
MIAMI (AP) — As crews Florida Department of
removed bodies from be- Transportation officials said
neath a collapsed pe- Friday. In a transcript re-
destrian bridge Saturday, leased Friday night, Den-
a victim's uncle raged ney Pate with FIGG Bridge
against what he called the Group said the cracking
"complete incompetence" would need repairs but the
and "colossal failure" that company didn’t think it was
allowed people to drive a safety issue.
beneath the unfinished University officials, howev-
concrete span. er, said Saturday that DOT
"Why they had to build this officials had been aware
monstrosity in the first place of the cracking before the
to get children across the collapse. They said in a
street?" said an anguished statement that represen-
Joe Smitha, whose niece, tatives of FIU and DOT met
Alexa Duran, was crushed with a FIGG engineer for
in Thursday's collapse at two hours Thursday morn-
Florida International Univer- ing to discuss the crack-
sity. "Then they decided to ing, and determined there
stress test this bridge while wasn’t a safety issue. The
traffic was running under- bridge fell soon afterward.
neath it?" “The FIGG engineer of re-
Authorities say six people Six crosses are placed at a makeshift memorial on the Florida International University campus in cord delivered a technical
were killed when the struc- Miami on Saturday, March 17, 2018, near the scene of a pedestrian bridge collapse that killed at presentation regarding the
ture fell onto a busy six- least six people on March 15. crack and concluded that
lane road connecting the (AP Photo/Jennifer Kay) there were no safety con-
campus to the community cerns and the crack did not
of Sweetwater. Crews re- from the rubble Thursday falo's Institute of Bridge En- “Any bridge with concrete, compromise the structural
moved two cars Saturday and later died at the hos- gineering, said they should that’s made of concrete, integrity of the bridge,” FIU
morning and said they pital. have been "a big red flag." there’s always cracks,” said said.
found three bodies, but of- Authorities have not re- "Bridges are really very vul- Verrastro, who has been NTSB officials have said it’s
ficials said there were still leased Duran's name, but nerable when they are an engineer for 42 years. too early to say whether
at least two more victims her family has said she under construction, when “If they had concerns that any cracking contributed
beneath the rubble. Late died. The FIU freshman was there are just pieces," he something was going on to the collapse.
in the day they recovered studying political science. said. "It's like still a flimsy for that main span, then In a news release late Fri-
a third car, and Saturday The National Transportation structure. And when you they would have called day, FIGG Bridge Engineers
night they said they be- Safety Board has confirmed see cracks, somebody has the sheriff or the police and said it “continues to work
lieved all victims had been that crews were apply- to raise really a big flag and closed the road. I would be diligently” to determine the
found. ing what's known as "post- say, 'We need to do some- very surprised if it’s deter- cause of the collapse, and
The Miami-Dade Police De- tensioning force" on the thing. We need to figure out mined that they were tak- is examining the steps its
partment confirmed the bridge before the failure. what's happening quickly ing a chance and trying to team has taken. It added,
names of four victims Sat- Authorities are investigat- and do any mitigating ac- do something under traffic. “The evaluation was based
urday. ing whether cracking that tions to prevent further pro- It’s just, as bridge engineers, on the best available infor-
Rolando Fraga Hernandez was reported just before gression of damage and that’s just never done.” mation at that time and in-
and his gold Jeep Chero- the span fell contributed to ultimately collapse,' as we Two days before the col- dicated that there were no
kee were pulled from the the accident. saw here." lapse, an engineer with the safety issues.” It also asked
wreckage Saturday. Later, Experts interviewed by But Ralph Verrastro, prin- design firm left a voicemail for time to accurately de-
the bodies of Oswald Gon- The Associated Press were ciple of Naples-based to say some cracking had termine what led to the
zalez, 57, and Alberto Arias, mixed on the significance Bridging Solutions, was not been found at one end of accident.q