Motorists warned police before overpass collapse disaster | Two feared dead in Montreal suburb as cars plunge onto Hwy. 19 Oct. 1, 2006. 01:00 AM SEAN GORDON QUEBEC BUREAU Related to this article Enlarge Image Officials inspect the remains of a highway overpass in Montreal on Sunday. (Ian Barrett/CP) MONTREAL—Motorists called police to warn of falling debris from a crumbling overpass an hour or more before it collapsed in Laval, Que., yesterday. Two people are feared dead and six were injured in the collapse, the second to occur in the suburb north of Montreal in the last six years. Three of the injured people suffered massive head wounds. Fire crews and rescue workers combed through the rubble on Highway 19, an artery that connects Laval with Montreal, well into the night, trying to get to a car and a motorcycle that police and witnesses said were passing underneath the elevated roadway when hundreds of tonnes of reinforced concrete and asphalt rained down around 12:45 p.m. Even as they worked on the 60-metre-long swath of the Boulevard de la Concorde overpass, hard questions were being asked about why authorities failed to close the bridge after motorists reported chunks of it falling off. A witness who identified himself as Dave Ferrara said he called 911 at about 11:30 a.m. to report a one-metre block of concrete crashing down onto the highway. He told LCN cable news channel, via telephone, that he was put through to Laval municipal police, who bounced him on to the provincial Sureté du Québec, who assured him a message would be forwarded to Transport Quebec. "I can't get over the fact that roadway was allowed to remain open for an hour after I called in," Ferrara said. Sureté du Québec officials confirmed they had received calls but wouldn't discuss their specifics or the sequence, saying that information is part of a police investigation. Seguin confirmed the Transport department sent out an email alert to Montreal-area traffic reporters warning of falling debris at about 11:40 a.m. She said a department patrol vehicle went to the site at about 11:45 a.m. but could offer no details about what actions the staff took there. A structural engineer with expertise in bridges thinks steel bars inside the overpass likely lost their bond with the surrounding concrete and are at the heart of the collapse. Shamim Sheikh, who teaches engineering at the University of Toronto, watched the Laval drama unfold on television. "In steel and concrete bridges, you need to have both the materials work together, so there is a very strong bond between them," Sheikh said in a telephone interview. A Laval bus driver who'd watched the overpass crash down, said he was among a dozen or so motorists who leaped into an improvised rescue effort. "At first, I could hear screams and then, at one point, there was nothing," Pascal Simeoni told the TVA television network. A shaken Manon Joly, who managed to brake before going over the edge, said: "Everything collapsed like a house of cards. There were three or four cars in front of me that plunged into the hole." Shocked motorists who were able to stop short of the disaster immediately ran to the aid of the injured. Robert Hotte and his girlfriend, Anne-Marie Leblanc, were driving back from a shopping expedition when the road dropped beneath their Honda Civic. "I didn't have time to brake. We just followed into the viaduct as it collapsed. It was like being on a ride at La Ronde (amusement park) when it drops suddenly. You find yourself in the dark and you don't know what's going to happen," said Hotte, 41, after being discharged from hospital. He received only a goose egg on his forehead, but Leblanc was admitted with internal bleeding. On a typical weekday, 19,000 cars cross the overpass, according to provincial statistics. Transport Quebec spokeswoman Josee Seguin said the overpass was built in 1970. Laval Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, who cut short a trip to Europe to visit the accident site, told a news conference last night that the bridge had been inspected a year ago and that the city had received no complaints regarding its safety. "If we had thought for a moment that bridge could fall, we would have closed that road," said Vaillancourt, adding that his city has previously sealed off roads that fell outside its jurisdiction because of safety concerns. Vaillancourt confirmed there will be multiple fatalities and cautioned it could take a day to reach the buried vehicles. One city councillor, Jean-Jacques Lapierre, pointed his finger at the provincial government, which owns the overpass. A report released in 2005 indicated that 2,200 of the province's 5,000 bridges and overpasses were in need of repair — about 800 of them officially classified as structurally deficient. But despite billions of new investments in roads, Quebec sets aside only enough money each year to fix a few dozen overpasses. With files from Caroline Touzin of La Presse and Canadian Press http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...829&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467
Hi Terry: ___Sounds very similar to the San Francisco earth quake back in 89 when some of the Oakland bridges collapsed with people on top and underneath. This is really sad given the warning was made well in advance of the collapse and the road crews did not shut down that bridge until it was to late ___Good Luck ___Wayne
