by a Special Inspections company specializing in that type of work, that is hired either by the Owner directly or as a sub to the design engineer if the Owner wants to deflect risk and the required on site coordination headaches. Special inspection requirements were originally adopted into the IBC primarily in response to a parking garage collapse in Fairfax VA. It doesn’t sound like the SIER was contracted to the design engineer in this case, and as it is in NYC who knows how this process is carried out there.

Front: "BE A CIVIC ENGINEER" with a matchbook cover Back: "TRAIN AT HOME" A CE classmate took a silk screening class and created them. Haven't seen mine for years.

A morning radio personality reported a significant "bump" at the end of the bridge. Upon inspection, and bridges are fully inspected a minimum of 2 years, the bridge seats on the end support, i.e., abutment, had cracked and slipped from the anchor bolts for the support bearings. The taller concrete bearing pads, to account for the side slope of the deck, were supposed to be reinforced with rebar stirrups since concrete is weak in tension. The other contributing factor was the Lucite®️ bearing at the first pier. It had a slot to allow span expansion but, upon installation, had the retaining nut tightened down much too snugly, preventing the longitudinal expansion movement. Thus, a lot of the expansion force was in the abutment end, cracking the unreinforced concrete seat/pads that dropped a few inches, creating the "bump." The bridge was about 25 years old at the time of the failure. Sometime, in a relevant thread, I'll share the other scary situation we found while on the reconnaissance inspection for this issue. ** Edited by TomTurkey at 7/17/2026, 10:28:45 AM

The "architectural" view of the top and bottom slab rebars were drawn in a partial section view. The contractor put both mats of rebar in the bottom slab. Or was it the top? Memory is fuzzy, but a remedial rehab was necessary. I always said that slab would survive the Apocalypse.

...structural engineer screwed up, or the GC screwed up. My money was on the GC (I would know...I work for one!) As much as I'd love to point fingers at the city inspectors, I think it's unlikely they are to blame in this case. I don't know exactly how New York's inspection office operates, but here in the Richmond area, none of the municipalities perform structural inspections. They require third-party inspection agencies to perform inspections of critical structural components, and then those third-party agencies provide reports to the building inspector/plan reviewer, which typically does not occur until the very end of the project. I've never been involved in high rise construction, so perhaps there should have been a failsafe that would have required inspection/approval of the reinforcement steel prior to any work being performed on the addition, but I have a feeling this situation is largely due to the general contractor jumping the gun and pushing to make progress on the addition due to schedule pressures and either willfully ignoring the risks of doing so without structural reinforcements in place, or doing so out of ignorance. I am willing to accept either case as being likely.

interesting to see this one play out.