Rick Scott denied
state played a role in FIU bridge collapse.
Records indicate
otherwise.
A Florida Department
of Transportation fact sheet of the March 15 bridge collapse
seems to have
understated the role of the agency,
which actually played an important part in
the project.
As Gov. Rick Scott
seeks election to the U.S. Senate,
the Florida Department of Transportation has
consistently distanced the state from a fatal bridge collapse outside Miami
but its explanations
have been
contradicted
as more information
becomes public.
The governor's
administration has said its role in the Florida International University
Bridge, which collapsed March 15, was limited to issuing traffic permits,
conducting a
"routine preliminary review" and acting as a
"pass-through"
for federal funding.
It also said an FDOT engineer was
unable to listen to a voice message describing cracks that were forming at the
structure's north end
because he was out of the office on assignment.
The
message was left by one of the bridge's private contractors
two days before the
newly built span fell
onto Southwest Eighth Street, killing six people.
Scott's
office has not yet fulfilled a
Sept. 25 public records request
from the Herald
for communications
between his staff and FDOT concerning the bridge.
Mike Dew, FDOT's
head since 2017, is a longtime Scott staffer
who, among other roles,
previously
served as the
governor's director of external affairs.
Democratic incumbent
Sen. Bill Nelson
has raised the state's involvement
in
the disastrous $14.2
million project
during the Senate campaign.
Nelson has called
for the National Transportation Safety Board,
the federal agency investigating
the accident,
to stop blocking the release of public records,
including minutes
from a meeting held to discuss the cracks the morning the bridge collapsed.
An
FDOT consultant was present at the meeting.
The records,
which the Herald
unsuccessfully sued to have released,
could explain who decided to keep the
road under the bridge open
to motorists as the cracks grew alarmingly in size.
"The victims'
families
and
the public
need to know what steps regulators did or did not take
to ensure the safe construction of the FIU pedestrian bridge,"
Nelson
wrote in an August letter to the NTSB's chairman.
Nelson's Senate staff
announced the letter in a news release,
which noted that
"state officials
have repeatedly tried to distance themselves
from any responsibility for the
bridge."