UPDATE @ 10 p.m. Jan. 21:
Federal inspectors will spend months investigating what caused a Cincinnati bridge to topple onto the highway Monday night and kill a 35-year-old construction worker.
The outcome of that investigation also will determine which entity must accept responsibility for the accident and who will pay for its clean up, state highway officials said Wednesday.
Debris from the accident — which spilled onto southbound Interstate 75 near Mitchell Avenue and shut down the strip of highway — was cleaned up earlier than expected Tuesday night and allowed the highway to reopen.
But work to determine the cause of the collapse that killed Brandon Carl of Kentucky and injured another man has just begun, highway officials say.
An Occupational Safety and Health Administration report will take between three and six months at least to complete, OSHA spokesman Scott Allen said.
“I haven’t seen a fatality investigation complete in less than three months,” Allen said.
The federal agency conducted 4,500 fatal work injuries during 2013.
Allen said investigators were on the scene again Wednesday and plan to interview the employer as well as witnesses who saw the Hopple Street bridge come crashing down Monday night. Engineers will also help.
The bridge was structurally sound at the time of its collapse, meaning investigators are narrowing in on human error as the cause of the collapse, Allen said.
Carl, and roughly 10 other construction workers were dismantling the bridge when it flattened the highway around 10:30 p.m. Monday. Carl’s body was discovered just before 3 a.m. Tuesday. A truck driver was also injured in the crash and taken to a nearby hospital.
Kokosing Construction Inc., an Ohio-based contractor working on a $90.7 million overhaul of the highway stretch and viaduct, cleaned up the mess in 24 hours.
State officials won’t decide whether Kokosing will pay for clean-up or delay fees until the OSHA report is released, said Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Cunningham.
“There are a lot of factors that will be considered,” Cunningham said. “That’s going to take some time to determine — to finalize those scenarios and the financial aspect of things.”
Aside from clean-up costs, state documents show Kokosing agreed to financial disincentives for unexpected lane closures like the one that occurred after the bridge collapse. Charges include $3,000 for every 15 minutes that a highway lane is unexpectedly closed.
The stretch of southbound I-75 shut down for 24 hours this week has four lanes — which could cost a company more than $1 million under the state’s agreement. However, any financial obligations the company faces could be negotiated, Cunningham said.
He said once the debris from the bridge was cleaned up, crews discovered minimal damage to I-75.
“Essentially, it was like filling a large pothole,” Cunningham said of the slight damage to the highway. “Unfortunately, a tragic situation occurred and things aligned and (clean-up) moved very rapidly.”
Highway officials said Kokosing handled $225 million worth of projects for the state last year. OSHA investigators also confirmed that while the company has received two safety citations since 2010, it has a good history of workplace safety.
Monday’s bridge deconstruction was the last of five bridges that Kokosing dismantled as part of the construction overhaul on the Cincinnati highway, Cunningham said. No additional work needs to be done to remove the bridge after the collapse, he added.
Bridges are more likely to collapse randomly than during the demolition process, said forensic and failure analysis engineer Mike Mariscalco of QEI Engineers Inc. in Dayton. He also said federal investigators will likely look at the demolition plan and question why the highway wasn’t closed while the bridge was dismantled overhead.
“The bridge fell down as a result of some combination of human intervention and reduced structural stability,” Mariscalco said. “It seems clear that there was someone who was missing something with how the remaining structure was being loaded (by) this poor fellow.”
UPDATE: 10:15 p.m., 1/20/2015
Our news partners at WCPO-TV are reporting all southbound lanes of I-75 have reopened 24 hours after a deadly overpass collapse.
Monday night Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffery Blackwell estimated a 48 hour closure of the freeway, but crews were able to complete cleanup and repairs in just one day.
UPDATE @11:51 a.m., 1/20/2015
The construction worker killed in an overpass collapse on Interstate 75 has been identified as Brandon Carl, 35, according to our partners at WCPO.
UPDATE @10:42 a.m. 1/20/2015
The bridge demolition was part of a $90.7 million project that started in the spring of 2013 and was slated to be complete in June of 2016, according to ODOT spokesperson Sharon Smigielski. Officials couldn’t immediately release estimates of the damage or if the collapse would push back the completion date.
The worker who died in the collapse was an employee of Kokosing Construction Company, based out of Fredericktown, Ohio. The construction company was the general contractor on the project, Smigelski said.
FIRST REPORT
A construction worker was killed and a semi driver injured when an overpass collapsed onto southbound Interstate 75 near Hopple Street Monday night.
The highway will be closed for at least 48 hours. Cincinnati police have also shut down eastbound I-74 at Beekman Street.
According to authorities, the overpass was being prepared for demolition, and fell around 10:30 p.m. Monday. The worker’s body was recovered around 3 a.m. today, according to our news partners at WCPO-TV.
A semitrailer driver suffered non-life threatening injuries, and Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffery Blackwell called the driver “very lucky.”
“A matter of seconds and his fate would probably have been different,” Blackwell said. “There’s several hundred tons of concrete that fell on the interstate.”
Blackwell said the morning commute today will be “a mess.”
“We want to advise people to please stay away from the area, and leave appropriate time in the morning to get to work,” he said.
There is no word on an official cause, but Cincinnati police said the collapse was related to the current construction, according to WCPO-TV.
- Eastbound I-74 at Beekman Street also is shut down because of the collapse.
- If you are headed south on I-75, you can exit the interstate at Mitchell Avenue, then follow the signage into downtown Cincinnati to get back to the interstate.
- If also can take I-74 west and exit the highway at Colerain Avenue or Montana Avenue.
- The northbound lanes of I-75 are open.