Death toll from Miami bridge collapse up to 6 as crews work to clear the rubble

At least six are dead and no more survivors are expected to be found beneath the crumpled concrete of the 950-ton pedestrian bridge that collapsed over Tamiami Trail on Thursday afternoon, police said early Friday.

As rescuers worked through the night and morning to clear the rubble, and teams of government investigators descended on the intersection of Southwest 109th Avenue and Eighth Street where the bridge came crashing down, Miami-Dade police said they expected the death toll to rise.

“We know that there are people missing,” said Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez, who did not clarify whether the death toll includes those still trapped under the bridge. “We’re caught in a bad place right now.”

Rescuers also ran into some bad luck. Before dawn on Friday, a crane used to remove heavy chunks of concrete stopped functioning, and workers backed it away from the recovery site. By early afternoon, wreckers were using heavy machinery to chip away at the massive southern end of the collapsed walkway, which had buckled.

“It’s a slow process because of the unsteadiness of the structure,” said Miami-Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta.

While rescuers search for the dead, and investigators document the evidence in painstaking detail, Perez said police are working to contact the families of those whose bodies have been identified.

Among the dead are Alexa Duran, a freshman political science major at Florida International University, and Navaro Brown, a 37-year-old bridge worker.

Then there are the missing.

Perez said investigators have an idea of who may have been inside some of the eight cars crushed under the bridge because of their license plates. But police cannot be certain who was behind the wheel of each car, or account for any possible passengers, until rescuers finish the grim task of clearing the rubble.

“This is going to be a long-term operation,” said Miami-Dade Fire Chief Dave Downey.

Speaking at FIU on Friday morning, Perez said rescue workers have confirmed at least five bodies remain under the bridge, although that number could rise.

Perez said Miami-Dade homicide detectives were working alongside investigators from federal safety agencies, including the National Transportation Safety Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle was scheduled to visit the scene Friday, he said.

“That does not mean that there are criminal charges moving or pending,” Perez said, though he added that depending on investigators’ findings, “there is always the possibility of that to occur.”

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue workers, homicide detectives, engineers and federal investigators have been working the scene since the bridge fell across eight lanes of the heavily traveled Tamiami Trail while unsuspecting drivers below waited at a red light.

Witnesses said the bridge snapped suddenly at the far ends and crashed down.

Dania Garlobo was driving to work when she brought her black Jeep Compass to a stop at the intersection shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday. Garlobo said she was second in line from the traffic light, heading westbound to a beauty salon on Coral Way, where she manicures nails, when the bridge suddenly fell.

“I started crying. I started screaming,” she said. “I didn’t think of myself in that moment, I thought of all the people under the bridge. … I thought, ‘God, there could be kids, adults, whomever, there are people under there!’ ”

As first responders rushed to the scene, Garlobo said the scope of damage was profound.

Officers and Good Samaritans desperately tried to pull people out of cars and help the injured. But some victims trapped under the bridge were frustratingly out of reach.

“You could hear the creaking and groaning of the debris and metal still settling,” said Florida International University Police Chief Alex Casas, who rushed to the scene.

Nine people pulled from the wreckage were rushed to Kendall Regional Medical Center, including two who required immediate surgery. Others sustained injuries ranging from scrapes and bruises to broken bones, which were not considered life threatening.

In all, ambulances transported 10 people to Kendall Regional on Thursday, said Peter Jude, a hospital spokesman. One of the victims died at the hospital.

On the FIU campus next door to the collapsed bridge, some families waited overnight for word on their missing loved ones. Miami-Dade homicide detectives, American Red Cross workers and at least one therapy-dog handler staffed the center, which was closed to media

Grace Meinhofer-Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said that as of 3:30 p.m. Friday, the center had taken in more than 60 family members searching for missing loved ones.

“They’ve been waiting here since yesterday, so it’s been a long process for them,” she said. Families of those confirmed dead met in a different area of the reunification center.

As families of the missing waited, officials began the laborious process of figuring out what went wrong — and how to prevent a similar catastrophe from happening again.

It is not yet clear what caused the collapse only five days after construction crews raised the bridge’s main span, measuring 175 feet long, into place on March 10. It was the first piece of a planned 320-foot-long pedestrian bridge that would have connected FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus to the neighboring city of Sweetwater.

The $14.2 million structure, which FIU had touted as an innovative “instant” bridge because of construction techniques intended to speed up the work and minimize disruption to commuter traffic, was installed in less than six hours.

But the project was far from complete and not expected to open to student foot traffic until 2019.

Shortly after the bridge collapsed, local officials confirmed that the structure had undergone a “stress test” though it was unclear what, if any, role that might have played in the failure.

But late Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida posted a message on Twitter shortly after leaving the scene of the accident. “The cables that suspend the #Miami bridge had loosened & the engineering firm ordered that they be tightened. They were being tightened when it collapsed today,” Rubio wrote on his social media account.

Rubio’s comment may provide insight into why the bridge fell, though it was unclear where the senator got his information or exactly what type of work was being done on the bridge. Several witnesses reported that two workers were on the bridge when it collapsed shortly before 2 p.m.

Beyond the cause of the collapse, more questions remain.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo said on Friday that he questioned why cars would be allowed to travel under a bridge undergoing a stress test. He said he spoke to experts about it and, “They have all told me they’ve never conducted stress tests on a bridge with anyone underneath.”

Asked about Sen. Rubio’s tweet, Curbelo said no one he’s spoken with Friday was able to confirm the senator’s statement.

Federal investigators said they intend to find out exactly why the bridge collapsed. Speaking at a press conference on Friday, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said the agency’s team of 15 investigators will be conducting their own probe of the collapse, independent of local authorities.

Sumwalt said he expected the agency’s work would begin Friday afternoon.

“We are here to determine the cause and make a recommendation to make sure something like this doesn’t happen in the future,” he said.

Federal safety officials are asking anyone who saw the bridge collapse to contact them via email at witness@ntsb.gov.

As federal safety officials continue their investigation, state and local officials clarified the chain of oversight for the pedestrian bridge, which was funded with federal dollars and administered by the university.

FIU selected the contracting team in a competitive process. It consists of MCM Construction, a family-owned contractor based in Miami, and Figg Bridge Group, a design and engineering firm based in Tallahassee.

Late Thursday, the Florida Department of Transportation distanced itself from the bridge construction and collapse, releasing a “fact sheet” that emphasized the state agency’s limited role in the project and underscoring FIU’s responsibility for the safe completion of the bridge.

The state agency noted that FIU selected a firm to conduct an independent, secondary review of the project, but that the firm, Louis Berger, was not “pre-qualified” by FDOT to perform the inspection, which is required under FIU's agreement with the state.

The state agency said its role was limited to issuing a permit for traffic control during the installation of the 175-foot-long section on Saturday and acting as a pass-through for federal funding.

“Any testing done to the structure following its installation was the responsibility of the FIU design build team,” according to the FDOT fact sheet.

Asked by reporters at the news conference Thursday if criminal negligence was involved, FIU President Mark Rosenberg said: ‘There will be all kinds of possibilities. I don’t think we can discard those possibilities.”

As rescuers work to recover the bodies of those who were trapped under the bridge, and federal investigators begin their inquiry into what caused the collapse, students and commuters who travel Tamiami Trail should expect the collapse to snarl traffic for weeks or longer.

State transportation officials said Thursday that a 10-block stretch of Southwest Eighth Street from 107th to 117th avenues will remain closed for “an extended period of time.” The Eighth Street exit on the Florida Turnpike will also be closed.

Miami Herald Staff Writers Sarah Blaskey, Howard Cohen, Joey Flechas, Kyra Gurney, Chabeli Herrera, Mary Ellen Klas, Monique Madan, Brenda Medina, Catalina Ruiz Parra, Rene Rodriguez, Carli Teproff and Martin Vassolo contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 16, 2018 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Death toll from Miami bridge collapse up to 6 as crews work to clear the rubble."