Big Dig Tragedy - video Review Shows Difficulty Installing Ceiling Panels

Big Dig Tragedy - video Review Shows Difficulty Installing Ceiling Panels

I’m sitting in my production suite making DVDs from Big Dig video of tunnel construction and watching men without solid hats chill ceiling panels in the Ted Williams Tunnel. They give hardy handshakes to a Bechtel supervisor who stops by to glad hand and ignores the pronounced OSHA violations. I can not help but wonder what other safety measures were overlooked in the cozy friendships of project managers and contractor field supervisors. Half - ton ceiling panels of concrete covered by porcelain are lowered into the tunnel sunk unbefitting the harbor by crane. The 4 x10 panels are held together by a steel grid that will be hand bolted to steel bars suspended from the top of the main tunnel. They hinge lightweight compared to the panels that plunged down to crush Milena Del Valle. The steel rods come to be suspended from brackets bolted into the primary concrete ceiling. The substantial panels are raised into vicinity by a machine. In early investigations, it has been buckle down that at beginning one of these ceiling sections of the Ted Williams Tunnel has to be replaced before more deaths befall. The Mass Turnpike connector tunnel needs much more work to ever approach a logical level of safety.
Next record. I can see the density of the rebar in the connector tunnel, marking the words “EAST BOUND” painted on girders suspended over the path where Milena Del Valle strayed her life in an supererogatory ceiling tunnel collapse. It’s clarion to me from the last two tapes that a stubborn opinion by project managers to use ceiling panels that were too substantial despite warnings about design from contractors routine cost her life last month. On the plant, the concentrated workers twist the rebar ties relentlessly. It becomes more bright why construction workers who hung the ponderous 2 - ton ceiling panels in 12 - ton grid arrangements would have been frustrated. Trying to gore clean holes to hold bolts affixed to the ceiling by epoxy would have been treacherous, the drill usually thwarted by rebar. The rebar is sworn to together in thick streams inside the concrete structure. In long camera shots it looks agnate a solid green sea, and up close the 3 or 4 inches between vertical and unbroken bars outline an queer looking halcyon and green plaid wall.
The record moves to close - ups of worker’s faces. I meditate that working overhead with concrete bits and dust falling down in your face while trying to hoist a drill massive enough to stab a hole for each hasp must have been very frustrating. Boring once besides into the rebar, it would have been so enticing to just epoxy a hole to insert the lock even if the hole was not 100 % concrete, not understanding the epoxy would not bond to the rebar. I can visualize one of these workers thinking that no one would ever know the digression if he did not try also an inch away to make a clean hole. Delayed at midnight working in a cold and alone tunnel where the light is so dim, peering into a concrete hole to see if it is clean would be too oppressive for partly anyone. Perhaps one of the workers I’m watching decided to indicate to a buddy in charge of heating epoxy that the hole bored into rebar was bored through only concrete.
Maybe today he is worried that he will be asked about this. I do have a few questions for the people who hung that ceiling. Did you use the shirt sleeve on your shlep in the heat of the early summer morning to mop the sweat that was dripping down your face? Do you remember how your skin felt selfsame cracking while sweat mixed with concrete bits? Did your throat tightened from the harsh smell of the chipped cement while your arms ached from the pounding drill overhead? That must have made your result easier to substantiate. Each time the drill screeched into rebar and showered your bare arms beyond the thick work gloves with warmth that bit your skin and singed the hair escaping from beneath your tough beret, it must have been easier to ignore the recipe to get a clean hole. I can follow if you signaled larger worker to insert the epoxy. I don ' t explain it, but I can see it.
I think your thoughts at after dark when you backbiting observant unable to sleep despite the number of drinks that are supposed to drown out the sound in your head. What did the project managers expect? You told them twice that this epoxy was not big idea to work and they looked at you selfsame you must be bum, demented, stoned or worse. Or you kept your mouth shut so the validated engage in in a tie and tough cap with a tie up board and the clean smell of aftershave would give you some overtime that you needed for new school clothes for the kids. But that was no excuse to proceed anyway, despite directions on the epoxy. You know who you are and it’s time to come forward. Indubitably, I know what happened to Keaveney and his memo. No one is language about a confession or heroism. Just let the press know, anonymously if you need to, thing about the Big Dig that you know was not done well. Do it now while the federal investigation is just aboriginal. After all, that could have been someone you loved in the tunnel last month or it might be a family member of yours in the future.
According to the Boston Globe coverage this week, the design team unbefitting contract for the connector tunnel in the early 1990s was uncultivated that the ceiling would be the lighter weight design used in the Ted Williams Cellar. Subsequent, when the design changed to very heavy pair panels, this design immovable warned the stay managers. Aside from warnings from designers and complaints from contractors about the weight of the selected design for the hollow ceiling panels, CA / T persevere managers went first with the other clip slabs to “save MONEY”! This resolution was the fated settlement from politicians and engineers who concluded up spending $14. 8 billion or more for a persist in originally estimated at $2. 3 billion.
While not in keeping with the quality of work that unions brief, it’s easier to identify with the cold-shoulder of the melt worker searching for a clean tear than the clamorous contempt for public safety shown by the linger managers and engineers who were warned regularly about this thinkable structural error. What is the untangle? Was it the bead of hunt for over trying to pay themselves and Bechtel a small expectation and keep the costs for the progress in line with the budget? Was it the choked up die over in the throat from their latest signing lagniappe for yet likewise brother - in - law without experience for a silvery foundation job? Were their arms umbrageous from signing checks for themselves and their friends?
Members of the Joint Feat ( the state and Bechtel / Parsons, Brinkerhoff ) had information that the den ceiling design might not be safe hard by safety tests of the bolts in 1994.
There were reports of problems with the bolts in both the eastbound and westbound lanes.
The response of at first one managing project director was to order further load testing
in the High Ownership Vehicle pathway only. The High Clout Vehicle pathway bolts tested well for loads that were double the weight of the ceiling panels.
These officials then chose to handle the disagreement the way many problems are handled in Boston, by taking care of their own and disregarding everyone other. According to the Boston Globe on August 16, especial privileges were extended for project managers and the employees of the MBTA. Project Managers and employees of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority notorious exclusive station to travel in the High Clench Vehicle pathway at all times. This was the only passageway tested for ceiling safety that was shown to be safe in the connector tunnel. Where is the good petulance in Boston? Will the politically privileged get a pass on consistent sappy behavior while they scrutinize the half dozen Walsh employees who actually installed the ceiling bolts in the panel that collapsed? Give me a crack. The project managers and engineers who failed to heed the warnings should be in jail by now. Attorney General Tom Reilly is too busy cover his own neglect of a Bechtel lawsuit while counting campaign contributions from Bechtel and project managers in his run for Kingpin to get his job done.
The next Conductor of this Realm has a really big job, a different humanitarian of Big Dig. It will be a monumental task to root out the favouritism havens in the 40 or so quasi - public authorities. These semi - private agencies get their money from the Rule, but have no engagement or clog to the people of this state. Mitt Romney has done little to help this state over the gone three years and we have yet to see if his new doyen appointment at the Turnpike can actually accomplish element. If he wanted to really make evident some leadership he would clean setup at every quasi - public authority in this Dominion before he goes off to run for President. Actually, cleaning out the favouritism and getting rid of the buddy deals between government and contractors would be good practice for the next renter of the Ghastly Lean-to, whoever gets the job.
ฉ2006, Dale Orlando