By Stephen Kangal
August 13, 2008
The collapse of the Caroni Bailey Bridge is powerfully symbolic of the pervasive collapse of this society under the weight of the ineptitude of the current Manning Administration. When the centre is not holding together the rest of the country or the periphery is in disarray and slowly disintegrating into managed chaos.
Is it not coincidental that it was the centre of the Caroni Bridge that collapsed and brought down the rest of the structure and its human cargo into the murky waters of the Caroni River? I drove past the bridge half an hour before the accident. I witnessed vehicles on the centre of the bridge being loaded with some of the dismantled parts of the floor of the bridge without any cranes present to suspend the main structure.
How can Minister Colm Imbert then say in his press conference that the bridge was being placed on wheels to be pulled to one bank of the Caroni River when it was being unwittingly dismantled piece by piece? There is no room in the adjoining rice-fields to pull this over one hundred feet bridge to the north side of the river. The push and pull technology is being used on the Uriah Overpass and over the new Mabey Caroni Bridge and not in the old Caroni Bridge.
One does not need a rocket scientist to tell us that it was human error during the dismantling process; that the integrity of the bridge worked well from the time it was erected in 1997. Minister Imbert carved a pathetic image in trying to score political points while one innocent workman perished and four others were injured unnecessarily.
Please do not remove the old 1883 single-lane Caroni Red Bridge formerly silver built by Daniel Meinertz Hahn because the new English-fabricated, 35 million-dollar Mabey Bridge can collapse at anytime and cut off Central Trinidad.
You are indeed correct Mr. K to lambaste the government for several of it’s numerous missteps through the years including the 38 that you served as what one might imagine was a loyal Civil Servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The last I checked, the Minister did accept responsibility for the Crane collapse that led to injuries and death of citizens, but said that his Ministry intends to “launch a “renewed immediate inspection of all existing bridges to see if there is any possibility of a problem with an existing bridge.” http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,83808.html
It might be a bit over the top for you to refer to that as simply “trying to score political points,” I would think, would it not? Many hardworking and sometimes desperate tax paying citizens with no clean running water at their disposal, as well as substandard roads, inadequate schools, antiquated health care, and low job opportunities, would also want to know why a bridge that was commissioned as recents as July 3, 1997 by former UNC Works Minister Sadiq Baksh, needs to be decommissioned in December 2007, and taken apart 8 months after with $150 million crane owned by contractor Junior Sammy/Gopeesingh at extravagant cost of $100,000 per day.
I would expect the same types of reactions if our new expensive Piarco Airport suddenly collapse – as a result of some minor refurbishing work being done at the time- killed ten people , injured 200 others ,and two plane crashed in the process- if you catch my drift. If not, let me give another good example. The Twin towers suddenly crumbled to the ground and the UNC is in power. I want an out raged PM Mr. Panday, together with daughter and her Uncle in tow, lambasting the then government that signed off on obvious shoddy and perhaps corrupt -laden work. At the same time, I expect to hear contriteness, sympathy, compensation, for the bereaved families and possible proposals to ensure that similar disasters are not repeated.
‘Good for the goose’ and all that sort of balance and objective analysis is what is needed to give public writing by educated figures like yourself credibility in the public eyes. Anything outside of that makes one look like a political mouth piece, or some ambitious futuristic political campaigner. It also simply makes the ruling regime and passionate fan bases become more defensive. That is hardly what we need at this critical stage of our country’s development you must agree.Surely not the way our much admired big northern brothers operates.
The Bailey Bridge erected in 1997 was a temporary structure to provide a North Bound two-way Traffic separation lane with the Red Bridge serving as the South Bound Lane. The 1997 Bailey Bridge was closed since December 2007 when the new two-lane Mabey Bridge was commissioned. It was decided by the Ministry of Works to dismantle in August, the 1997 Bailey Bridge because it was no longer necessary over the Caroni River and in fact had served well and was not being used at all. The 1873 Caroni Red Bridge was in fact also removed on Wednesday 13 August 2008 because it was not being used for traffic. This removal cost the taxpayers $5m TT.
I referred to “scoring political points” because Minister Imbert tried to attribute blame for the collapse of the Bailey Bridge to the UNC Administration’s method of assembly of the bridge.
Stephen Kangal
It is indeed amazing how UNC apologists and politicians et al make linkages to the present government in general and Prime Minister Manning in particular with any disaster or unfortunate circumstance, however caused. If one were to believe these opposition folks one would get the impression that the PNM and its officials engineer and execute all kinds of calamities on the population.
Mr. Kangal, these are your words: “One does not need a rocket scientist to tell us that it was human error during the dismantling process.” Some workmen dismantled a bridge and because of mistakes made the bridge collapsed and unfortunately one person lost his life. If you want to carry your analogy to its fullest extent, even though that bridge collapsed it had already been replaced by a new one.
The media reports of the collapse of that bridge was really an eye opener. Most reports headlined the disaster and most times conveniently omitted to mention that at the time of collapse there were three bridges, only one of which was a Bailey bridge. Apart from the Ministry of Works pointing out this fact media reports studiously refused to make this kind of clarification in the early days of the incident.
Many persons (inclusive perhaps of the MP for St. Augustine who I am certain was not at the site for empathy only) unfortunately connected the collapse with the newest constructed bridge since it had been in the news since its commissioning.
I could not agree with Neal more when he wrote:”…balance and objective analysis is what is needed to give public writing by educated figures like yourself credibility in the public eyes. Anything outside of that makes one look like a political mouth piece, or some ambitious futuristic political campaigner.”