Diversity Fail? All-Women Engineering Team Blamed for Collapse of Miami Pedestrian Bridge

[Fishrrman]

http://sandrarose.com/2018/03/diversity-fail-women-engineering-team-behind-collapse-miami-pedestrian-bridge/

Diversity Fail? All-Women Engineering Team Blamed for Collapse of Miami Pedestrian Bridge
Sunday, March 18, 2018

The all-women engineering team that designed the ill-fated pedestrian foot bridge at Miami’s Florida International University were highly touted for their advances in a field that is typically dominated by men.

But critics are pointing the finger of blame at the female engineers for design flaws that may have brought the bridge down.

Investigators are still on the scene of last week’s bridge collapse that killed 6 people and injured 9 on the FIU campus in Southwest Miami.

The investigation is focusing on the work done by a team of all-women engineers who were employed by one of the construction firms that designed and built the bridge.

Munilla Construction Management (MCM), the South Miami-based firm that designed the FIU foot bridge, has been sued multiple times for unsafe practices in the past.

More at URL above...

[mountaineer]

I saw that same story from a different website, but didn't post it because it was some Stormfrontish-type of place.

[thackney]

Builder of doomed bridge has friends in high places
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/article205658984.html

...The firm is run by five brothers — Fernando, Jorge, Juan, Pedro and Raul — who collectively have given well north of $500,000 to federal candidates and more than $50,000 to state candidates, according to state and federal records.

Pedro — a former lawyer who gave up his law license in 2001 as part of a “disciplinary resignation,” according to a Florida Supreme Court filing otherwise devoid of details — has been the biggest giver, accounting for more than half of the federal total. He represented the brothers last June in a meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and leaders in the Cuban community before President Donald Trump’s Miami speech on Cuban policy. He also hosted GOP fundraisers for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, in 2015, and Carlos Curbelo’s congressional campaign, in 2014....

[Suppressed]

You would think that an article claiming there was an all-woman design team, saying that such a team was touted, would provide some evidence that it was an all-woman design team, and that the company touted such.

Instead, the graphics provided do no such thing.

[Frank Cannon]

Just goes to show. Women should be doing domestic engineering, not civil engineering.

@RoosGirl

[thackney]

You would think that an article claiming there was an all-woman design team, saying that such a team was touted, would provide some evidence that it was an all-woman design team, and that the company touted such.

Instead, the graphics provided do no such thing.

Interesting that press releases about this project from before the collapse made no mention of an all-women engineering team.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-of-its-kind-pedestrian-bridge-swings-into-place-300611973.html

[mountaineer]

Just goes to show. Women should be doing domestic engineering, not civil engineering.

Make me a sammich!

[ABX]

Sorry but this is a load of crap. It doesn't matter if the engineers were all women, men, or RuPaul. Tolerance specs and testing and design software are highly accurate now and fairly universal. It sounds harsh, but sometimes crap happens. In something like this, one small weakness can be catastrophic- and it is highly doubtful that the weakness had anything to do with 'diversity' or women. There are so many factors in the supply chain and construction chain for something like this, it could be a multitude of problems, and possibly none of them are due to any specific identifiable human cause.

Blaming women in general (or women of color as some articles from questionable sources imply) is as bad as blaming all gun owners for gun crime. Even if one person screwed up, it is on that one person.

[INVAR]

The design itself was fatally flawed and would have ended up killing a whole lot more people at some point in the future. 

Also - the installation itself was beyond stupid.  No supports above or below - while allowing traffic to run by underneath.

The following video from an engineer is a great examination of the bridge design itself and the collapse.

He explains that the vertical tower and cables were just a "dummy" suspension bridge "look"---NOT the support system for the bridge.

The ONLY support system for the bridge was a SINGLE LINE of "trusses" consisting of V-shape diagonal concrete columns, that have a single cable inside. If the cable in ANY ONE of those fails or breaks - the bridge was going to come down regardless of how or when it failed.

They were apparently tightening the cable on the first truss when the cable snapped, and down she went.

There was no backup for the design, no redundancy of support, only a single column of concrete trusses to hold up the bridge.  No steel in the construction whatsoever, except for whatever cable they had inside the trusses.

It was a disaster just waiting to happen.  I suppose better now than if it was open and operating and it collapsed with a bunch of students walking on it AND cars below it.

! No longer available

[aligncare]

Generally speaking, women have talents men don’t and men have talents women don’t, and it has nothing to do with socialization. There actually are gender differences beyond the obvious physical differences.

However, without knowing the specifics here I’m not prepared to say those differences were in play in this case.

[thackney]

No steel in the construction whatsoever, except for whatever cable they had inside the trusses.

The rebar in the photos after the collapse show that not to be true.

[INVAR]

The rebar in the photos after the collapse show that not to be true.

That pic is not the section of bridge.  That pic is the stairway tower to access the bridge.

[thackney]

That pic is not the section of bridge.  That pic is the stairway tower to access the bridge.

Zoom in on the bridge, not the foreground.

You can see the rebar where the concrete broke away from it in the bridge.

[truth_seeker]

I don't care the gender, ethnicity of those involved.

In the end, government plan checks, on site inspections, are supposed to provide PREVENTION of such mistakes.

So I list it as yet another proof of government incompetence.  Like the government police person that shoots your dog.

Like the government school, county sheriff, city police and national FBI that fails to lock up crazy Nik Cruz.

Not long ago, Medical Doctors and CPAs largely self-regulated themselves. But government involvement has increased a lot.

[thackney]

Dashcam video shows FIU bridge as it collapses
https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2018/03/16/new-dashcam-video-shows-fiu-bridge-as-it-collapses-engineer-warned-of-cracks-on-tuesday/

[INVAR]

Zoom in on the bridge, not the foreground.

You can see the rebar where the concrete broke away from it in the bridge.

As has been noted by engineers that section of concrete and rebar was from the right side of the span where it rested on and was anchored to the support pillars.

I am reading the incredulity of engineers that note that there is no steel reinforcement in the span itself.  The ONLY steel they could see in the span - was the single cable that was inside of the w-shaped trusses in a single line on the inside of the span.  Even the roof covering above the footbridge was solid concrete.

[thackney]

As has been noted by engineers that section of concrete and rebar was from the right side of the span where it rested on and was anchored to the support pillars.

I am reading the incredulity of engineers that note that there is no steel reinforcement in the span itself.  The ONLY steel they could see in the span - was the single cable that was inside of the w-shaped trusses in a single line on the inside of the span.  Even the roof covering above the footbridge was solid concrete.

Zoom in on the picture and look with your eyes.

There is rebar all over that structure poking through the broken span.

[thackney]

As has been noted by engineers that section of concrete and rebar was from the right side of the span where it rested on and was anchored to the support pillars.

I am reading the incredulity of engineers that note that there is no steel reinforcement in the span itself.  The ONLY steel they could see in the span - was the single cable that was inside of the w-shaped trusses in a single line on the inside of the span.  Even the roof covering above the footbridge was solid concrete.

Here is a few close up views.  Do you see any rebar?

[truth_seeker]

Sure does look like rebar in the photos.

Was it enough? Was the cement correctly composed? What about the member for the middle of the span?

Did the government inspectors know what they were doing,, make huge costly mistakes?

[RoosGirl]

Just goes to show. Women should be doing domestic engineering, not civil engineering.

@RoosGirl

You are so right.  Please do not walk across any bridge that I have designed.

[RoosGirl]

So I watched some of the NTSB briefing.  They have a big blow up of one of the plans with Denney Pate's seal clearly on the bottom middle of the plans.  I cannot find him listed as a Florida engineer at all, which is weird to me.

Anyway, here's another video explanation of possible reason for failure.  Lots of F-bombs so not safe for work and not family friendly.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtiTm2dKLgU

[WingNot]

You are so right.  Please do not walk across any bridge that I have designed.

That is a bridge too far!

[DB]

Dashcam video shows FIU bridge as it collapses
https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2018/03/16/new-dashcam-video-shows-fiu-bridge-as-it-collapses-engineer-warned-of-cracks-on-tuesday/

Wow... It looks like the failure started at the exact same location a crane was doing something with it.

[thackney]

For those us searching for details in the design:

This is the original proposal for the bridge design in 2015.

https://facilities.fiu.edu/projects/BT_904/MCM_FIGG_Proposal_for_FIU_Pedestrian_Bridge_9-30-2015.pdf

[DB]

As has been noted by engineers that section of concrete and rebar was from the right side of the span where it rested on and was anchored to the support pillars.

I am reading the incredulity of engineers that note that there is no steel reinforcement in the span itself.  The ONLY steel they could see in the span - was the single cable that was inside of the w-shaped trusses in a single line on the inside of the span.  Even the roof covering above the footbridge was solid concrete.

It clearly has rebar in the span itself. The rebar is why the most of the buckled sections are still connected to each other. There may not have been steel beam reinforcement beyond the rebar.