Comments on: Big Dig tunnel collapse

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:50:07 +0000

Looking at their website, the Standard Set and Fast Set do seem to be two separate products, and not one product that is mixable two different ways. In light of that fact, I now think the NTSB’s statement seems downright misleading. Maybe there’s evidence we don’t know about yet, but why wouldn’t such evidence be public? I agree with Ted that the company sounds like it has a solid defense.

By: Smitty

Smitty — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:15:18 +0000

I’ve personally worked with the stuff, there’s no way the epoxy people would have ever signed off on the way the epoxy was used, of all the folks responsible for the collapse the epoxy people are the least culpable.

The design, installation, inspection and oversight were all negligent, the epoxy was fine.

No epoxy manufacturer would ever advocate such a lame ass use of their product.

The illegal alien glue squirters probably laughed while installing the vertical rods from the ceiling.

Engineering wasn’t necessary to spot this design flaw, common sense should have been enough, not only should all the contractors lose their licenses permanently so should the inspectors and engineers-especially the engineers-on top of punitive damages.

I’m hesitant to levy any liability on the construction grunts, they’re not paid to render opinions but you can bet they didn’t walk below their own work.

I believe there’s still a huge collapse peril and an intentional car bomb would certainly create a pressure wave which might bring down all the panels in the tunnel at once killing hundreds or even thousands more.

By: Smitty

Smitty — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:15:03 +0000

The design, installation, inspection and oversight were all negligent, the epoxy was fine.

No epoxy manufacturer would ever advocate such a lame ass use of their product.

The illegal alien glue squirters probably laughed while installing the vertical rods from the ceiling.

I’m hesitant to levy any liability on the construction grunts, they’re not paid to render opinions but you can bet they didn’t walk below their own work.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:18:46 +0000

Here is the full Powers statement, who are rather explicit in their claim that they did provide adequate information, and object that they were not permitted to perform testing that would have revealed the problem.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:49:41 +0000

The NTSB’s statement provides a bit more background, although it’s certainly still confusing. The NTSB refers to the use of a different epoxy “formulation”:

“Contributing to the accident was the failure of Powers to determine that the anchor displacement that was found in the high-occupancy vehicle tunnel in 1999 was a result of anchor creep due to the use of the company’s Fast Set epoxy, which was known by the company to have poor long-term load characteristics. The information that was provided by Powers regarding its Power-Fast epoxy was inadequate and misleading. This resulted in Modern Continental Company (Modern Continental) using the Fast Set formulation of the epoxy for the adhesive anchors in the tunnel even though that formulation had been shown through testing to be subject to creep under sustained tension loading, the Board found.”

This seems to say that there’s only one brand of epoxy at issue here (that of Power Fasteners), which can be mixed to different strengths and drying speeds based on the needs of a particular job. If I’m reading the NTSB right, Power Fasteners somehow misrepresented the characteristics of its epoxy under these different formulations.

Still, while this arguably could constitute negligence, it does seem aggressive to pursue criminal charges here. Maybe the DA has some internal communications evidencing a cover-up, but that’s not apparent from the public record at this point.