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 butcher ceiling panels in the Ted Williams Tunnel. They give hardy handshakes to a Bechtel supervisor who stops by to glad hand and ignores the conspicuous 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 inmost beneath 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 cylinder tunnel. They look lightweight compared to the panels that plunged down to crush Milena Del Valle. The steel rods pop in to be suspended from brackets bolted into the big concrete ceiling. The bulky panels are raised into whereabouts by a machine. In early investigations, it has been decided that at beginning one of these ceiling sections of the Ted Williams Tunnel has to be replaced before more deaths occur. The Mass Turnpike connector tunnel needs much more work to ever approach a unbiased level of safety.
Next recording. I can see the density of the rebar in the connector tunnel, stare the words “EAST BOUND” painted on girders suspended over the lane where Milena Del Valle unredeemed her life in an causeless ceiling tunnel collapse. It’s unclouded to me from the last two tapes that a stubborn adjudicature by project managers to use ceiling panels that were too enormous despite warnings about design from contractors simple cost her life last month. On the plant, the inflexible workers twist the rebar ties relentlessly. It becomes more prominent why construction workers who hung the heavy 2 - ton ceiling panels in 12 - ton grid arrangements would have been frustrated. Trying to pierce clean holes to hold bolts affixed to the ceiling by epoxy would have been treacherous, the drill recurrently thwarted by rebar. The rebar is exposed together in thick streams inside the concrete structure. In long camera shots it looks relating a solid green sea, and up close the 3 or 4 inches between vertical and flush bars fashion an queer looking shining and green plaid wall.
The disc moves to close - ups of worker’s faces. I deliberate that working overhead with concrete bits and dust falling down in your face while trying to hoist a drill hefty enough to pierce a hole for each hasp must have been very frustrating. Boring once besides into the rebar, it would have been so alluring to just epoxy a hole to insert the fastening even if the hole was not 100 % concrete, not understanding the epoxy would not bond to the rebar. I can envisage one of these workers thinking that no one would ever know the discongruity if he did not try besides an inch away to make a clean hole. Dilatory at bedtime working in a cold and by oneself tunnel where the light is so dim, peering into a concrete hole to see if it is clean would be too oppressive for halfway anyone. Possibly 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 guide in the heat of the early summer morning to swab the sweat that was dripping down your face? Do you retrospect how your skin felt approximative cracking while sweat mixed with concrete bits? Did your throat tightened from the sour smell of the chipped cement while your arms ached from the pounding drill overhead? That must have made your sentence easier to answer for. Each time the drill screeched into rebar and showered your bare arms beyond the thick work gloves with luminosity that bit your skin and singed the hair escaping from unbefitting your insoluble cap, it must have been easier to ignore the recipe to get a clean hole. I can appreciate if you signaled major worker to insert the epoxy. I don ' t clear it, but I can interpret it.
I visualize your thoughts at nighttide when you complete distortion of the facts skillful unable to sleep despite the number of drinks that are supposed to drown out the roar in your head. What did the project managers expect? You told them twice that this epoxy was not vitality to work and they looked at you near you must be dallying, batty, stoned or worse. Or you kept your mouth shut so the authorized manage in a tie and insoluble boater with a pair 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 system on the epoxy. You know who you are and it’s time to come forward. Most assuredly, I know what happened to Keaveney and his memo. No one is utterance about a confession or heroism. Just let the press know, anonymously if you need to, affair about the Big Dig that you know was not done well. Do it now while the federal investigation is just inceptive. 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 Cavity. Later, when the design changed to very heavy cement panels, this design unrelenting warned the abide managers. Aside from warnings from designers and complaints from contractors about the weight of the selected design for the pothole ceiling panels, CA / T progress managers went early with the new tie slabs to “save MONEY”! This showdown was the imminent agreement from politicians and engineers who on ice up spending $14. 8 billion or more for a remain originally estimated at $2. 3 billion.
While not in keeping with the quality of work that unions interpret, it’s easier to identify with the cold-shoulder of the juxtapose worker searching for a clean fracture than the big contempt for public safety shown by the draw out managers and engineers who were warned ofttimes about this imaginable structural failure. What is the illustrate? Was it the bead of grill over trying to pay themselves and Bechtel a small gain and keep the costs for the persist in in line with the budget? Was it the choked up itch in the throat from their latest signing courtesy for yet supplementary brother - in - law without experience for a wan shore job? Were their arms distressed from signing checks for themselves and their friends?
Members of the Joint Biggie ( the state and Bechtel / Parsons, Brinkerhoff ) had information that the pothole ceiling design might not be safe meeting 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 pioneer one managing project director was to order further load testing
in the High Grip Vehicle lane only. The High Tenacity Vehicle track bolts tested well for loads that were double the weight of the ceiling panels.
These officials then chose to handle the hot water the way many problems are handled in Boston, by taking care of their own and disregarding everyone deeper. According to the Boston Globe on August 16, choice privileges were extended for project managers and the employees of the MBTA. Project Managers and employees of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority noted main stratum to travel in the High Dominance 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 moral enmity in Boston? Will the politically privileged get a pass on corresponding goofy behavior while they scrutinize the half dozen Walsh employees who actually installed the ceiling bolts in the panel that collapsed? Give me a schism. The project managers and engineers who failed to heed the warnings should be in jail by now. Attorney General Tom Reilly is too busy awning his own neglect of a Bechtel litigation while counting campaign contributions from Bechtel and project managers in his run for Luminary to get his job done.
The next Rector of this Tract has a really big job, a different altruistic 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 Empire, but have no boundness or concern to the people of this state. Mitt Romney has done little to help this state over the elapsed three years and we have yet to see if his new ringleader appointment at the Turnpike can actually accomplish word. If he wanted to really make out some leadership he would clean flat at every quasi - public authority in this Province before he goes off to run for President. Actually, cleaning out the nepotism and getting rid of the buddy deals between government and contractors would be good practice for the next resident of the Milky Home plate, whoever gets the job.
ฉ2006, Dale Orlando