FL - Pedestrian bridge collapses at Florida International University, Miami, 2018

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Lamima said:
dog allerting

I have been watching and wondering why they have just been standing around all this time...not really digging out like you see with tornado or earthquake situations.
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my local news said vehicles are flattened like a pancake. Box truck under bridge has been smooshed to 2 ft. tall.
 
Too sad...witness (on Fox News) describing the scene...she and her husband (a police officer) were some of the first to reach the scene. He performed CPR on a worker, another appeared to be deceased.

She saw a little boy in the back seat of a car -- waving for help.

moo
 
Restaurant owner talks about running over and seeing a car that was flattened in the front with no possible survivors but little boy in backseat crying for help and the rescue workers made the woman leave for her safety. She sounded devastated as she told the story. So sad
 
From the pictures it looks like one of the attachments at the supports failed vs. the walkway collapsing. Although I know was going to be a cable stay bridge but the cables hadn't gone up yet, which meant the walkway was carrying more of the static load than it would once complete. One would assume they would have calculated for that.
 
I went to FIU for undergrad, and I'm currently finishing my PhD there. I travel that road VERY often. The main entrance of the university is at the traffic light right before bridge. This hits MORE than close to home.

Students are on Spring Break this week so thankfully most of them
were not on campus today. However, The Miami- Dade County Youth fair, which uses a large part of the university's land, opened today. The fair brings A LOT of traffic. It's pure chaos and such a shock to watch unfold.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Lamima said:
Restaurant owner talks about running over and seeing a car that was flattened in the front with no possible survivors but little boy in backseat crying for help and the rescue workers made the woman leave for her safety. She sounded devastated as she told the story. So sad
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So many tears...
 
Jax49 said:
Fox News reporting there was a stress test underway when the bridge collapsed.

(live tv)
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20/20 hindsight: Road beneath the pedestrian bridge should have been closed to all traffic during the test.
 
BetteDavisEyes said:
Interviewees on CNN are referring to the pedestrian bridge having been built ABC - Accelerated Bridge Construction. Less obstruction to traffic, built quickly.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/abc/
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From interviews on CNN, it sounds very experimental, very risky. JMO, ABC probably has less to do with traffic and more to do with cutting costs/bigger profits. Even more risky in states and municipalities that shun government oversight and safety regs, inspections, etc.
 
BetteDavisEyes said:
20/20 hindsight: Road beneath the pedestrian bridge should have been closed to all traffic during the test.
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Something tells me that was a recommendation they ignored. There was a structural engineer on CNN earlier who didn't work on th e project. He says there are a lot of rules, instructions, guidelines they're supposed to follow when doing this kind of construction. He said he hoped they didn't skip any steps but may have. He said there's supposed to be a lot of testing before during and after they put it in place. He said the bridge is weakest under ABC when it's just been put in place. That's the time it's most susceptible to catastrophic failure.

From the video I watched, it didn't even look like there were any construction vehicles or workers around. Maybe they just plopped it down fastened it and went home. Disaster waiting to happen.

Don't they have inspectors in FLA for this kind of thing?

I hope the families of victims sue the construction company. It's the only way they learn safety, when it affects their bottom line. Then again, you probably can't sue anyone for this kind of negligence anymore in FL. So many states have gutted consumer protections.
 
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/mi...k=8bd6dd1587f3fe8c8442093d9b2f90d0-1521150549

Florida congressman Carlos Curbelo said he had been told a stress test was underway when the bridge collapsed.

“There was some testing taking place, and it is a very good question that must be answered — why more precautions weren’t taken before conducting this type of stress test if indeed that was the case,” he said.
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Two of the eight victims taken to hospital were construction workers who had been on top of the bridge when it collapsed.
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bbm
 
enelram said:
2 companies involved in the bridge construction have built other bridges which collapsed. Miami is a very corrupt city
for doing business there. Lots of payoff done to get work and contracts. Like a third world country in some ways.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/tw...n-bridge-also-built-collapsed-bridges-report/
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Wow. Why I am I not surprised. The ABC scheme sounded like a third world country idea. I don't live there, but my perception of FL is the entire state government is corrupt and lax, starting with the governor. This just reinforces my decision a few years ago to never visit the state again for vacation or business. There are a few I don't travel to anymore. Our vacations this year will be out west and in the northeast.
 
Jax49 said:
FIU bridge collapse: Several killed after pedestrian bridge at Florida college collapses


http://abcnews.go.com/US/pedestrian...tional-university-collapses/story?id=53774444

Includes many photos of the scene.
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a comment:
[FONT=&amp]"If you look at the renderings it was supposed to be a cable stayed bridge. They released the supports under the slab without the tower/cables installed."
[/FONT]
Yes, this.
I looked at the renderings as well.....the tension cables were to balance the compression forces and weight.
Yet the bridge was swung over on its own? Was it expected that the concrete slab would be temporarily strong enough for that span without a support in place before the tower and cables were to be placed?
I don't understand.

And the stress test...what were they thinking to allow traffic through during that?
 
From CNN live video, it doesn't look like they're doing anything. Just standing around, talking and looking at things. They had a dog there earlier, but its gone now.

I feel badly for anyone in the cars who may have survived the collapse. No one is trying to help them. No cranes working, nothing.
 
My husband is a retired large structure concrete engineer. He said the way it crumbled into small pieces, it looks like the concrete wasn't fully cured.
 
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