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Crack on Florida bridge was discussed in meeting hours before collapse

Workers stood next to a section of a collapsed pedestrian bridge Friday near Florida International University in the Miami area.Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

MIAMI — Hours before the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University on Thursday, the engineering company for the bridge met with the construction manager and representatives from the university and the Florida Department of Transportation to discuss a crack on the structure, the university said Saturday.

The engineering company, FIGG Bridge Engineers, delivered a technical presentation on the crack, the university said, and “concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge.”

The meeting was held two days after FIGG’s lead engineer on the project left a voicemail message for the Transportation Department about “some cracking that’s been observed on the north end” of the bridge, according to a statement from the department.

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The engineer, W. Denney Pate, also said the cracking did not present any safety issues.

The Transportation Department said the message was not heard until Friday but did not mention that the crack was discussed at the meeting its representative attended Thursday.

At no point during their communications, the department said, “did FIGG or any member of the FIU design-build team ever communicate a life-safety issue.”

Whether the cracking contributed to the collapse, which killed at least six people in their cars on the street below the bridge, remains a key question in the investigation.

Construction crews were working on a diagonal beam at the north end of the structure at or about the time of the collapse, according to information the National Transportation Safety Board provided to local members of Congress. Workers were tightening cables that ran inside the beam.

Authorities say at least six people were killed when the structure fell onto a busy road connecting the campus to the community of Sweetwater.

Police say they believe they have now recovered all the bodies of victims.

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Three victims were found Saturday morning in two vehicles. Late in the day, crews recovered a third car but did not initially say if they found more remains.

The Miami-Dade Police Department confirmed the names of four victims Saturday.

Rolando Fraga Hernandez and his gold Jeep Cherokee were pulled from the wreckage Saturday.

Later, the bodies of Oswald Gonzalez, 57, and Alberto Arias, 54, were found inside a white Chevy truck.

Navarro Brown was pulled from the rubble Thursday and later died at the hospital.

Experts interviewed by The Associated Press were mixed on the significance of those reported cracks.

Amjad Aref, a professor with the University of Buffalo’s Institute of Bridge Engineering, said they should have been ‘‘a big red flag.’’

‘‘Bridges are really very vulnerable when they are under construction, when there are just pieces,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s, like, still a flimsy structure. And when you see cracks, somebody has to raise really a big flag and say, ‘We need to do something. We need to figure out what’s happening quickly and do any mitigating actions to prevent further progression of damage and ultimately collapse,’ as we saw here.’’

But Ralph Verrastro, principal of Naples-based Bridging Solutions, was not surprised to hear about cracks, and said it was not necessarily a problem.

‘‘Any bridge with concrete, that’s made of concrete, there’s always cracks,’’ said Verrastro, who has been an engineer for 42 years.

‘‘If they had concerns that something was going on for that main span, then they would have called the sheriff or the police and closed the road. I would be very surprised if it’s determined that they were taking a chance and trying to do something under traffic. It’s just, as bridge engineers, that’s just never done.’’

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On the Florida International University campus, Joseph Smitha was walking around in a daze. His niece, Alexa Duran, was presumed dead in her car, which remained under the debris of the bridge a block away.

Smitha, a 55-year-old auto parts manager, had spent the night in his truck after making the four-hour drive from Palm Harbor, Fla., fitfully mourning Duran, an FIU freshman.

“Her mom is a wreck,” he said. “I’ll never hear her say, ‘Hi, Uncle Joe’ again. I know it’s not going to bring my niece back, but how did this happen?”