It bothers me that everyone's focusing on the aftermath of the disaster, but no one's talking about the immigrant (yes, confirmed) road workers who were never notified when authorities blocked traffic.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
135 points (98.6% liked)
News
21742 readers
3406 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
My understanding was that the authorities at least realized they needed to contact them, but there was only about 2 minutes between the distress call and the impact, so I'm not sure they could have escaped even if they were notified.
I keep seeing reports that there were other vehicles on the bridge, but nothing about the occupants. I don't know if they mean other work vehicles though.
ETA: It looks like they might not gave had direct radio contact with the work crew, and one of the police officers was going to drice to them, but the bridge collapsed before they could: story
People can haul ass when their lives are in danger.
Unless they were in harnesses or something, they might have had a chance to at least make it towards the nearest shore.
I find it hard to believe that their company had no way of reaching them while they were on a job.
The company certainly would have had a way to contact them, but it seems the port authorities didn't. They were also working 'in the middle' of the bridge, so could have been a mile or more from safety. Given the timing of the distress call, even if they'd been notified instantly I don't think they had much of a chance unfortunately.
So maybe you've heard something I haven't, according to this timeline, there was only 2-3 minutes between when the ship issued a mayday and the bridge collapsed: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-timeline-911-call-dali-cargo-ship-mayday-maps-construction-worker-recovery/
It sounded like there was 1 police officer already stationed on either end of the bridge, so thats the only reason they were even able to close the bridge before the collapse.
In the time it took them to do that, I can't see how there would have been time to warn them physically (it's like a 2 mile bridge). From the article, it sounded like there was confusion about if a crew was even on the bridge. I also don't know how often / what mechanism police can use to directly contact crews, if there even is one.
I mean, it's been covered, but yeah, not much is being made of the implications, but not much has been made of the implications of immigrant children working in plenty of US meat factories, either. So I guess I'm not really all that shocked that it's not being heavily discussed. It's usually news that is forgotten quickly. I wish it wasn't, it's bullshit, but US citizens don't seem to actually care.
Im wondering, did the workers not have radios that they could have been called on? If not thats pretty fucked up. Idk how much time there was for someone to drive to them to notify them.
Even if they did, I don't think the police on either end would have been on the same system, or known what channel they were on.
Im thinking more like harbor communication radio but i guess they are not part of the harbor crew and just part of some random private roadwork company.
Its a valid point though there should be ways for the bridge work crew to be radioed by first responders and other safety personnel. The cops still probably couldn't do it from their handsets but id wager they could radio a base station with the power and range of frequencies and modes could get the base station to put out the warning.
Or, y'know, sirens on the bridge itself that can be activated in an emergency, preferably in a pattern unique to the bridge (not tornado sirens)?
Honestly. This is such a rare occurrence there will likely never be such a warning system. The better protocol would be to install massive fenders or something like that to protect the bridge piers. This is a lesson that was clearly learned after the Sunshine Skyway collapse. The US needs to seriously accelerate the retrofitting of every bridge that is exposed to this hazard.
A new article in "NEWS" says the following ...
There wasn’t time for a maintenance crew filling potholes on the span to get to safety. Source
Right so even if they were warned, they had 2 minutes max.
Acting to avoid liability for a company. Always trying to throw workers under the bus.