Third grader questioned Boston's Big Dig ceiling safety back in 1999

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

Key quote: A third-grade girl raised her hand and asked him, ``Will those
things hold up the concrete?"


  _____  

 
<http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2006/07/26/memo_warned_o
f_ceiling_collapse/>
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2006/07/26/memo_warned_of
_ceiling_collapse/

Memo warned of ceiling collapse

Safety officer feared deaths in '99, now agonizes over tragedy

By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff  |  July 26, 2006

The on-site safety officer for the Interstate 90 connector directly warned
his superiors at contractor Modern Continental Construction Co. that the
tunnel ceiling could collapse because the bolts could not support the heavy
concrete panels, and feared for his conscience if someone died as a result.

John J. Keaveney -- in a starkly-worded two-page memo sent in 1999 to Robert
Coutts, senior project manager for Modern Continental -- wrote that he could
not ``comprehend how this structure can withhold the test of time."

Keaveney added: ``Should any innocent State Worker or member of the Public
be seriously injured or even worse killed as a result, I feel that this
would be something that would reflect Mentally and Emotionally upon me, and
all who are trying to construct a quality Project."

Keaveney, in an interview last night, said that after he raised the concern,
his superiors at Modern Continental, the company then building the tunnel,
and representatives from Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the private sector
manager of the Big Dig, sought to reassure him. They told him that such a
system had been tested and was proven to work.

He said Coutts told him, `` `John, this is a tried and true method,' " he
recalled. He also raised the concern in person with Bechtel/Parsons
Brinckerhoff officials in subsequent conversations, but they said simply
that they were doing the work to design specifications and that the ceiling
would hold.

Andrew Paven, a spokesman for Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, declined to
comment last night.

...

He said he really began to worry about the ceiling after a third-grade class
from his hometown of Norwell came to visit the Big Dig for a tour in spring
1999. He showed the class some concrete ceiling panels and pointed to the
bolts protruding from the ceiling, explaining that the panels would one day
hang from those bolts.

A third-grade girl raised her hand and asked him, ``Will those things hold
up the concrete?"

He started voicing concerns among his colleagues and then to managers after
that. ``It was like the [third-graders] had pointed out the emperor has no
clothes," he said. ``I said, `Yes, it would hold,' but then I thought about
it."

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