A more-than-year-old (but newly-released) forensic audit that sought to identify the root of structural failures leading to the closure of the Washington Bridge on Dec. 11, 2023 — and pinpoint who shares blame for allowing those failures to go uncorrected to a point of near catastrophe — has sent new shockwaves throughout the state and triggered legislators to schedule another oversight hearing on the matter.

Notably, the report indicated that while the state’s decision to suddenly close the bridge with no warning was “entirely justified”, there was no shortage of blame to be passed around for the bridge’s ultimate failure; including state transportation officials and various professional firms who were tasked with inspecting the bridge, along with contractors who were tasked with making corrective repairs to the bridge over the decades.

“Many of the issues highlighted in this report show that program managers, bridge inspectors, and designers should have and could have been aware of problems that were developing,” the report states in its conclusion. “Greater attention needed to be paid to the importance of the post-tensioning systems in overall structural performance and stability of the bridge.”

The audit, which was conducted at the behest of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) by Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE) of Falls Church, Va., was compiled into a draft report dates April 5, 2024, and was released in full on the Rhode Island Attorney General’s website this past Friday.

However, that apparently only happened after local news outlets — including the social-media based “What’s Going on in Rhode Island”, and then WPRI — had been honing in on stories after acquiring a copy of the draft report. A report which Governor Dan McKee had reportedly refused to release for over a year; claiming an inability to do so because of the pending lawsuit the state levied against around a dozen contractors they believe share blame for the bridge crisis.

That lawsuit is not slated to begin until some time in 2027.

The 64-page report goes into great detail parsing through all available information on the bridge provided from RIDOT — from the original plans for the bridge, which were drafted in January of 1967, to rehabilitation efforts and inspection reports throughout the decades since it was built.

The goals of the report were: to firmly establish what led to the failure of post-tensioned tie-down rods within a portion of the bridge that were deemed dangerous enough to immediately suspend vehicular traffic over the bridge; to judge if that immediate closure was reasonable; to assess if the failure “could have or should have been foreseen”; and to provide recommendations on how to prevent similar events from happening in the future.

We will provide a few key takeaways from our analysis of the report here.

The bridge was a complicated design, which contributed to its issues
WJE starts their report by indicating that the Washington Bridge was constructed with a unique design, “possible the only one of its kind in the country,” they write.

“The use of post-tensioned elements to provide counter-balance to gravity loads on a cantilever element, although not entirely without precedent, is not a common design configuration for highway bridges,” the report reads. “This method of framing could be argued to be complex in its configuration.”

While the report includes a lot of this type of technical, engineering lingo, the important takeaway appears to be that the bridge’s unique design meant that dozens of bridge inspections from half a dozen different professional firms spanning 20 years seem to all have missed critical signs of deterioration among the tie-rods that ultimately failed.

The report indicates that the bridge’s many tie-rods across its span were mostly encapsulated in concrete diaphragms, “and therefore not visible to inspectors” without significant disruption to the bridge. While there were a few exposed tie-rods (indeed, some of them were ultimately visibly observed to trigger the closure), they were not readily accessible or readily visible due to the bridge’s substructure design.

“Access was limited to that enabled by the existing catwalks along the interior pier walls, unless extraordinary measures were undertaken,” WJE writes. “The elevation of catwalks was such that the base of tie rods at support corbels was above the inspector’s eye level. The two tie-down rods along the north face of beam line A at Piers 6 and 7 could be observed from the access hatch and ladder used to reach the catwalk inside the pier enclosures. However, without conscious effort to focus on the rods while descending the ladder, they could be easily overlooked.”

“As a result of the factors outlined above,” the report continues, “there appears to have been a general failure to recognize the significance of the tie-down rods.”

Closure was justified, but no one comes out clean
WJE concluded in their findings that state officials were “entirely justified in closing the bridge as a precaution to protect both the traveling public and workers at the bridge.”

However, the report also points a finger at RIDOT for not adequately recognizing the unique nature of the bridge’s design and calling those features to the attention of their chosen inspectors.

“WJE’s review did not reveal existence of an ‘Owner’s Manual’, or operations and maintenance (O&M) manual, to call attention to complex elements (e.g., tie-down rods) or to specify associated inspection and maintenance procedures,” the report states. “In modern practice, the designer of a complex structure, upon construction and commissioning, would be required by many jurisdictions to provide an O&M manual to guide methods and frequency of recommended actions and highlight unusual or critical components.”

“The entity responsible for safety inspections within RIDOT should conduct a review of structures that could be considered complex to identify critical elements or details…” it continues, “to ensure that the elements are properly inspected/addressed with each applicable inspection.”

But the report doesn’t solely put the burden of responsibility on RIDOT’s shoulders, either.

“In addition to RIDOT, six different nationally recognized engineering firms alternately performed one or more routine or special safety inspections of the bridge from 2001 to 2023,” it states.

The report has particularly damning words for a 2016 rehabilitation effort that was awarded by RIDOT to the now-defunct Cardi Corporation in December of 2016, and slated to be complete in 2019. However, that contract was ultimately cancelled with barely any work undertaken.

“Though details available to WJE are sparse, the 2016 rehabilitation seemed to have been plagued by poor coordination and very little emphasis on progressing the work,” the report states. “Although repairs were heavily concentrated at the east end of the bridge, the distribution and progress of patch repairs seemed very haphazard.”

The report added that inspection photos throughout the years between 2016 and 2021 —when the rehabilitation project was finally re-started with a new team consisting of Barletta Engineering Heavy Division and Aetna Bridge Company, with design engineers VHB supported by VN Engineers, Inc. — showed deteriorating elements of the bridge continued to become exacerbated.

“Overall, the bridge superstructure general condition rating remained 4 – Poor for more than a decade while known defects continued to grow and multiply,” the report reads. “Many maintenance recommendations were repeated over multiple inspection cycles without being addressed. The failure of the 2016-2019 rehabilitation project resulted in extended exposure and greater deterioration.”

Legislative leaders call for another oversight hearing
Rhode Island Senate President Val Lawson, and Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, K. Joseph Shekarchi, admitted to reportedly learning about the audit being released from the aforementioned WPRI report, saying that the report “deeply troubled” them.

They said in a joint statement that they would be initiating another oversight hearing to probe further into state officials’ handling of the crisis.

“The General Assembly has held two joint oversight committee hearings on the bridge and required monthly transparency progress reports in state statute,” the statement reads. “The General Assembly intends to conduct an additional rigorous oversight hearing, where all options remain on the table such as putting state officials, including Director Alviti under oath. Prior to the next oversight hearing, we will consult with the Office of the Attorney General. In addition to more public transparency, Rhode Islanders deserve a safe, reliable, and operational Washington Bridge as soon as possible.”

A request for comment from Governor Dan McKee’s office, and from RIDOT, was not immediately answered.