Order of Engineers won't lay blame in de la Concorde overpass collapse

CTV Montreal: No blame in overpass collapse Some families are frustrated with a decision to close the file on a disastrous collapse, Stephane Giroux reports.

Quebec's Order of Engineers has decided to lay no blame in the 2006 collapse of the De la Concorde overpass.

A spokesperson from the Order of Engineers told CTV Montreal there was not enough evidence and too much time had passed to lay blame on 11 of 12 engineers under inquiry for the collapse of the de la Concorde overpass.

"After nearly eight years of work in the syndic office, only one of the 12 will be forwarded to the disciplinary council and that doesn’t have to do with the overpass collapse, the other files have been closed due to lack of proof,” said Chantal Michaud, the head of the office of the syndic, which disciplines engineers, explains the Cocorde decision.

"We've conducted dozens of interviews, some were dead, others were too old, and we were unable, in spite of all the efforts, to say someone failed." (Watch full interview, in French, here)

Michaud said one silver lining to the tragedy is that steel beams have become the construction standard in overhead beams that sit under such structures.

A public inquiry was launched shortly after the collapse. It concluded a series of events and negligence contributed to the collapse, and recommended that several people, including the heads of the company that built the overpass in 1970, be held responsible, saying it was a chain of events that led to the collapse.

Five people were killed and six were injured in Sept. 30, 2006 the collapse.

But the collapse happened so long ago, the order says it's impossible to be able to build an air-tight case against those who might have shown neglect in the construction of the overpass.

Those involved are either dead or too old to be brought to justice, according to the order.

Things have also changed within the profession, it says. Before, things were done using ink, paper and rulers. Now, everything is computerized.

The decision to avoid laying blame doesn’t sit well with Maria Mercadante, whose husband was seriously injured in the collapse.

She said she felt from the time the collapse happened that no one would be held accountable.

“I don't think we've had closure in our home yet. There's always that thing hanging over it over us, there was something missing,” she said.

“Whenever there's something that comes up there's always that feeling in my stomach that justice wasn't served.”

One Transport Quebec engineer responsible for maintenance has yet to appear before a disciplinary council.

Tiona Sanogo will appear before a Quebec Order of Engineers disciplinary committee Aug. 27th. Sanogo was a MTQ engineer and was in charge of repairs to the overpass in 2002.

Self-healing concrete

One researcher told CTV Montreal that a new era of concrete should forever put such issues into the past in new construction.

“There have been many evolutions in concrete technology," said Bruno Massicotte of the Polytechnique Institute. "If we look at the 1960s when we were making concrete not meant for our climate, this didn’t survive very well, today we can make better concrete, much better than before, but this new concrete, we add steel fibers to it, so it eliminates the brittleness.

"If you pull on a concrete block it’s like a piece of chalk, it’ll just break, whereas when we put the fibers in, instead of breaking, the crack just forms but the fibers bridge the crack and keep it strong. By keeping the crack small, water does not penetrate and you protect your structure. You have a more durable structure." (Click here to watch full extended video of the entire interview).