Investigation into the Washington Bridge's condition is coming. What will happen next.
Gov. Dan McKee's administration will conduct a two-part investigation into why the condition of the Washington Bridge deteriorated so suddenly that the state had to abruptly close the westbound lanes of Interstate 195 West last week.
First, one of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation's regular bridge-inspection contractors will conduct a forensic analysis of the bridge and how anchor rods holding it together broke sometime between July and December.
Then, to make sure that analysis has been done well, the Department of Administration is seeking a second consultant and "independent expert to ensure that a thorough review of what led to the Washington Bridge closure is completed," administration spokeswoman Laura Hart said.
Who will be the independent expert and when will it be done? Unknown
The two-part probe aims to satisfy McKee's promise to have objective, outside eyes examine the bridge while not holding up repairs that will allow use of the westbound span again. Westbound and eastbound traffic are currently sharing the lanes of the eastbound span, but at half the capacity of normal operations.
Who the independent expert will be, when they will be hired and how much they will be paid is unknown.
The state "is currently evaluating procurement options," Hart said and there is no timeline.
The initial forensic analysis will be done by WJE as a subcontractor to Michael Baker Co., which DOT spokeswoman Lisbeth Pettengill describes as "our regular bridge-inspection company."
Neither WJE nor Michael Baker performed any of the last four of the annual inspections of the Washington Bridge that deemed it fit for use.
The last bridge inspection, in July, was performed by AECOM. It did not find damage to the anchor rods that, spotted by an engineer working on the bridge, triggered the bridge closing that froze traffic in Providence and East Providence. The unidentified "young engineer" as he was dubbed by state officials, worked for VHB, part of the consortium repairing parts of the bridge.
More: Was your business harmed by the Washington Bridge closing? New SBA recovery center opens.
Will the feds step in?
What is less clear is what role, if any, the federal government will play in figuring out what happened to the bridge and whether it could have been prevented.
Last week, as the resulting traffic problems peaked, Rhode Island's congressional delegation wrote to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg asking for federal help to "evaluate the adequacy of bridge inspections."
And with some state lawmakers calling for General Assembly oversight hearings on the bridge closing, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said finding answers to what went wrong is better left to experts at the Federal Highway Administration.
"What's going to happen from what I understand right now is that the Federal Highway Administration is going to come in here. They're going to take a look at actually what happened with this bridge," Ruggerio said. "And once we find that out, then we can move forward and question how this came about."
Asked for more details on the federal role, Ruggerio clarified that he didn't know for certain that the FHWA is going to investigate, but that it can and should be called in.
"Normally that's something that could be requested," he said. "The FHWA has people in different regions throughout the country [who] do this. From my understanding, they're going to come in and take a look at it. Once they take a look at it, we get the report and then we'll take a look and decide what action we are going to take."
An FHWA spokeswoman reached late in the day Tuesday promised to look into the agency's role.
The DOT's Pettengill wrote in an email that she did not know what the FHWA will ultimately do, only that the federal agency does not have a role in the forensic audit the state is commissioning.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Washington Bridge investigation will include forensic analysis
