1. Fiu Collapse Cause
2. Miami Fiu Bridge Collapse

MIAMI, FL — Engineers working on the failed Florida International University pedestrian bridge should have 'immediately' ordered traffic be stopped and the structure shored when an inspection was conducted hours before the March 2018 collapse that killed six people, including a bridge worker and five others, according to a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Death toll rises in Florida bridge collapse. The death toll from the collapse of a 950-ton pedestrian bridge at Miami’s Florida International University rose to at least six — while the search-and-rescue operation turned into a recovery mission, officials said. “What we can confirm is at this point at least we can confirm six fatalities,”. Futures and families shattered,” FIU President Mark Rosenberg said in a statement over the weekend. The bridge was installed March 10, just five days before the collapse. The cracks, which were detected two days before the incident, were discussed during an engineering meeting on the day of the accident.

'FIGG Bridge Engineers .. the Engineer of Record .. failed to recognize that the bridge was in danger of collapsing when it inspected it hours before the collapse,' the report said. 'The concrete truss had developed numerous wide and deep structural cracks jeopardizing the integrity of the bridge. The EOR should have immediately instructed that the bridge be shored at appropriate locations and SW 8th Street be closed.'

The 115-page report was prepared by Mohammad Ayub, director of the office of engineering services within OSHA's Directorate of Construction. It was released Tuesday.

FIU declined to comment on the report, pointing to an ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. 'Given the ongoing NTSB investigation, FIU is not in a position to comment at this time,' FIU spokeswoman Madeline Baró told Patch Wednesday.

Students and faculty of FIU recently marked the one-year anniversary of the bridge collapse with a moment of silence. Eight other people were injured in the tragedy.

Photographs released earlier by the National Transportation Safety Board showed large cracks that had been documented in the pedestrian bridge days before the massive structure came crashing down.

The 174-foot-long main span failed on March 15, 2018 not long after the main 950-ton main span of the bridge was lifted from its temporary supports, rotated 90 degrees across the eight-lane road and lowered into its permanent position in a matter of hours over busy SW 8th Street.

'The bridge had structural design deficiencies that contributed to the collapse,' the OSHA report concluded. 'The cracks on the bridge occurred due to deficient structural design.'

On the morning of the collapse, the engineer of record held a meeting after evaluating the cracks over the course of two days but did not know why the cracks were occurring.

'Despite these admissions and the knowledge that the cracks were growing in size, EOR stated more than once that the cracks did not present any safety concerns,' the report said, referring to the engineer of record.

The report also blamed Munilla Construction Management, the design-build contractor, for not notifying the engineer of record that the cracks had gotten larger since they were initially spotted.

Moreover, the report was critical of Networking Engineering Serivces Inc. The firm was doing business as Bolton Perez and Associates Inc., which served as the construction engineer and inspector for the project.

'With intimate knowledge of extensive cracking on the bridge, BPA [Bolton Perez and Associates] failed to recognize that the bridge was in danger of collapsing, and did not recommend to FIU, MCM or others to close the street and shore the bridge, regardless of the opinion' held by the engineer of record, the report said.

OSHA said the bridge truss was designed in a manner that was non redundant and 'if one diagonal member failed, the entire bridge could collapse.'

The report noted that 'given the nature and extent of the cracking and the non-redundancy of the bridge design, necessary safety precautions should have included closing the roadway below the bridge and immediately providing shoring to the bridge at suitable locations until a complete evaluation was done.'

What to Know

• When questions arose, FIGG assured the others there was no concern with safety, according to minutes prepared by its construction contractor

Text messages, photos and other data stored on a cellphone used by the engineer of record on the doomed Florida International University pedestrian bridge could be key evidence in understanding why the bridge collapsed.

But there’s a big problem with getting that evidence: three months after the collapse, the phone used by the most important engineer on the project suffered “water damage” before anyone tried to back up its contents.

That’s what lawyers for the engineer’s employer, FIGG Bridge Engineers, are telling a state court handling lawsuits against FIGG and others involved in the project.

But, after hearing testimony from FIGG vice president C. Denney Pate -- who said his wife accidentially washed his phone with his laundry one year ago -- Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey called FIGG's credibility into question.

FIU announced in court it would relinquish any claim to money it sought in bankruptcy court, as long as all $5 million went to the pool of funds set aside for the victims of the collapse, NBC 6's Tony Pipitone reports.

Without questioning Pate's sworn testimony, she did criticize his employer's handling of potential evidence in the case, saying the company 'fundamentally misrepresented' for months the status of the cellphone and its efforts to recover data from it.

'I can’t tell whether any of this is remotely accurate anymore and what might be out there that FIGG hasn’t told us about,' Bailey said.

Bailey scolded FIGG's attorneys in court Wednesday, incredulous that the firm would not have backed up Pate's phone for months after the collapse, even after lawyers ordered the preservation of all potential evidence.

Newly released minutes of a meeting held the morning of the FIU bridge collapse reveal engineers dismissed concerns about cracks, assured colleagues it was safe to keep the road below open and said temporary shoring to hold up the bridge as repairs proceeded was not necessary.

'What this evidences is an incredibly cavalier attitude toward the gathering of evidence at the outset of this case,' she said.

When one FIGG lawyer apologized 'for any perception we have not been forthcoming on this,' Bailey interrupted, saying, 'It's not a perception .. it's a done deal.'

FIGG said the National Transportation Safety Board is now aware of the issue with Pate's phone and is expected to issue a subpoena for it any day.

Jenna Mendez, who tried to help pull people from the rubble when a bridge collapsed at FIU, is still coping with the tragedy one year later. NBC 6's Tony Pipitone reports.

Bailey's patience with FIGG began to wear thin at a hearing last month.

“Where are these text messages?” she demanded then. “What is going on with these text messages and why don’t I have them” months after they were sought in pretrial discovery?

After FIGG requested another 90-day delay, Bailey had had enough and ordered FIGG to present Pate and testimony on the mystery of the soggy cellphone at the hearing Wednesday.

NBC 6's Andrea Cruz has more from the family of a student at the school who was one of six killed just one year ago.

Fiu Collapse Cause

Pate, the engineer of record, led FIGG’s technical design for the bridge and is the same engineer who left a voicemail two days before the collapse informing FDOT the bridge was cracking and “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.”

He testified he did not delete any texts or photos related to the FIU project, that he did not back them up to a cloud, and that he did not author substantive texts about or take any photos of the project.

Text messages recovered from other FIGG phones, described in previously unreleased court documents obtained by NBC6 Investigators, reveal Pate’s opinions as the bridge was cracking apart and how alarmed some at FIGG were. Processor i5 gen 5 harga.

The disaster that killed six people on Southwest Eighth Street at 1:47 p.m. on that warm, clear Thursday is a construction failure borne of design errors and what appears to be a misguided attempt to address them by adding tension to a critical, failing truss without closing the road below.

Miami Fiu Bridge Collapse

On the same day he called FDOT, Pate was “still not clear on why (cracking) happened,” one FIGG engineer texted another.

“Oh wow. Sounds serious,” engineer Erica Hango responded.

“Don’t you worry,” replied fellow engineer Eddy Leon, adding Pate was going to travel from Tallahassee to Miami for a meeting “just to calm everybody down.”

NBC 6's Tony Pipitone speaks to the family of Alexa Duran, who died after a pedestrian bridge above her at FIU collapsed.

But at that meeting two days later, convened just hours before the collapse on March 15, 2018, not everyone was calm as engineers discussed FIGG’s plan to address the cracking.

When questions arose, FIGG assured the others there was no concern with safety, according to minutes prepared for FIU by its construction engineering and inspection contractor, Bolton Perez & Associates.

But FIGG submitted what it calls “corrected minutes” to the National Transportation Safety Board that paint a somewhat different picture.

NBC 6's Tony Pipitone reveals another problem with the FIU bridge's move that happened days before the collapse.

Attorneys for the Louis Berger Group, hired to double-check FIGG’s engineering work before any construction would take place, say FIGG’s minutes omit key facts – part, they say, of an effort by FIGG to minimize its responsibility for the events that led to the bridge collapsing, killing six.

Among the discrepancies Louis Berger cited between the FIGG and BP&A minutes, revealed here for the first time publicly:

• FIGG failed to mention that BP&A asked at the meeting whether FIGG’s repair plan had been reviewed by Louis Berger or anyone else. A FIGG executive “was involved in the decision to omit this reference of the need to peer review and involve Louis Berger,” the pleadings state.
• While BP&A’s minutes say FIGG assured the others there was “no concern with safety,” FIGG’s minutes instead say “no one expressed concern with safety.” Louis Berger’s lawyers argue there’s no evidence any “party other than FIGG offered a view on the safety of the bridge.”
• Asked whether “temporary shoring” would be needed, the BP&A minutes quote FIGG as saying “it was not necessary” to shore up the bridge during repairs. But FIGG’s minutes limited discussion of shoring to BP&A and the general contractor, Munilla Construction Management, saying those firms discussed “additional steps” and “potential options to implement in order to add reserve strength.”
• FIGG tried to minimize its knowledge of the severity of the cracking, saying in its minutes its engineers found the cracks were “more noticeable” in person that morning than they did when previously viewing photographs. The BP&A minutes quoted FIGG as saying the cracks were “more significant in person.”
• FIGG tried in its minutes to downplay its role during and after the move of the span from its roadside construction area onto a pylon and pier built on the north and south sides of SW Eighth St. BP&A’s minutes state it and FIGG inspected the bridge after the move was complete and it “showed nothing.” But FIGG’s minutes say it acted in only an “observing role” during the move and that BP&A did the inspection. In an email, though, a FIGG executive states the firm “did not observe” the cracking during its “inspection of the main span.”

Louis Berger cited those examples as part of its effort to persuade Judge Bailey to give it access to the draft minutes and communications FIGG and its lawyers created as it developed the “corrected minutes,” which were sent to NTSB six weeks after the collapse.

FIGG claims those records cannot be seen by others because they are privileged work product, created in consultation with its lawyers in anticipation of litigation.

Judge Bailey decided to review the underlying materials herself before deciding if FIGG made “any kind of factual alteration” in its drafts. If so, she said, it is possible she could override the privilege and allow others to see what FIGG and its attorneys were doing in preparing their version of the meeting.

Louis Berger has not yet seen the drafts and communications, but based on what it has seen in discovery, it is saying it appears FIGG did alter the facts.

“A comparison of the corrected minutes to contemporaneous handwritten meeting notes of FIGG employees and other contemporaneous documents confirm that FIGG counsel likely changed or permitted changes to the facts that resulted in corrected minutes that were not fully faithful to what transpired at the March 15 meeting regarding the cracking,” wrote Louis Berger’s attorney.

FIGG has responded in court papers to Louis Berger’s arguments, but has submitted them as confidential court documents and they are not available to the public. Its attorneys declined to comment on the matter.

Louis Berger’s attorneys, though, say they have “no confidence or faith in whatever” FIGG’s attorneys said in court last month, citing the damaged cell phone and saying they are “very skeptical about where Mr. Pate’s phone is, what happened to it.”

They asked Bailey to order FIGG to turn over all records it has on efforts to retrieve data from the phone and to order testimony from a FIGG computer specialist who worked on the issue.

The judge said she would decide what, if any, actions to take against FIGG after further review.

Bailey is overseeing 20 lawsuits filed by the families of those who died and others who claim they were victims of the collapse.

So far, mediation has failed to produce any settlements in the state court actions, although MCM’s bankruptcy has produced a $42 million pool of insurance money that will be distributed among victims under the auspices of the federal bankruptcy court.

The remaining defendants in state court will soon be allowed to file claims against each other, as the firms involved in the project seek to deflect blame before a judge or jury decides how responsible each party may be in the collapse.

As the case moves toward full litigation mode, Louis Berger is aggressively challenging FIGG – the firm whose engineering work it was supposed to double-check.

Attorneys for Louis Berger have said in court the firm had no idea that, after cracking was observed on the bridge, FIGG had ordered re-stressing post-tension bars that ran through a diagonal truss that was cracking. That procedure was underway when the bridge collapsed.

Pate had already left the worksite and was heading back to FIGG headquarters in Tallahassee a half hour before disaster struck when he texted his boss, firm owner Linda Figg: “Meeting went pretty well. FDOT and FIU were represented. Our attendance and information were appreciated. We will be working on some additional ideas to better the current situations. I’ll get you more details when I get back to the office.”

That text was recovered from Figg’s phone, but any other communications Pate had with others outside FIGG may be forever lost to the water damage his phone suffered.

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