NO.
OSHA? This was a design and construction error/problem/mistake/decision.
OSHA would have detailed rules telling you to wear safety harnesses attached to a “secure foundation” capable of xxx lbs tension by a “engineer” ... but only incidentally requires the full structure be built safely over the road and for the workers on the bridge.
A democrat donor contractor building a democrat-donor-designed bridge “design” getting government (democrat) money from a democrat (Obama) administration in a democrat city in a democrat congressional district for a democrat (liberal) “university” favoring minority and illegal alien workers? Yeah. No possibility of corruption in that mix.
Who’s guide lines call to stop traffic ?
How did they get a TIGER grant for this? Those were supposed to go for projects that had some kind of national import. Though I’m guessing the TIGER program was just another one of Obama’s slush funds
Um, no.
OSHA regulations codify construction safety rules. In this case the OSHA rules prohibit suspending loads over live traffic. You cant just swing a crane over a street full of cars. OSHA regulations require that ouclose down the street or highway and clear it of vehicles temporarily before you can swing the crane over the freeway lanes.
They correctly closed the highway lanes when they rolled the bridge into place.
They violated OSHA regulations when they loosened supporting cables and performed a stress test above a highway full of cars and trucks. That was the violation here. The highway should have been empty beneath the bridge in that temporary condition to conduct the in place testing.
The bridge still in the middle of construction. The temporary cables were needed in the interim to hold up the bridge until the tower was finished being built, and all the permanent supporting cables from the tower to the bridge deck, were in place.
What I don’t know is if the bridge was designed to allow the short term loosening of some of the temporary suppoeting cables without collapsing. If not, then it was a violation of the approved plan to loosen those cables before the peranent cables were installed. On the other hand, if the bridge was designed to be self supporting during construction, then tere is some other reason for the collapse.
First we have to know if the bridge was roperly designed, including any temporary configurations during construction. If the design was adequate, then Next we need to know if the bridge was built precisely to design, or if misakes or poor workmanship compromised the bridges strength.
If the bridge was designed correctly and built to design, then somebody failed to use safe construction practices, which is what I expect.
Now, after ALL that, it is a rotten shame if for any reason your brand new $15 million bridge falls down and you have to start over from scratch.
What is unforgivably criminally neglegent, is working over live traffic where there is ANY CHANCE of things going wrong posing a risk of collapse, like they did by loosening supporting cables and performing stress testing over highway lanes filled with people in cars and trucks.
This is very much an OSHA violation, and will result in huge fines for the contractors. But nothing can bring back the innocent people who died. What the Contractors did loosening cables over traffic is akin to voluntary manslaughter. Somebody should be going to jail, but they won’t. The worst thing that can practically happen is that the contracor loses his license, but that almost neer happens. And even if it did, he would just change the company from his wife’s name to his daughter’s name or his sister’s name, thereby remaining a WBE Women Owned Business to get preferential bidding.