Parents lost their daughter in the collapse of the FIU bridge and face the situation | El Nuevo Herald Four years after the fall of the FIU bridge, family that lost their daughter finds acceptance

South Florida

by Jimena Tavel

As soon as she entered her daughter's room, Gina Durán went to the closet.

She searches through the clothes until she finds Alexa's favorite shirt: a blue and white checkered blouse, the one that Durán took out of the laundry basket shortly after her daughter's death.

Holds her close to her face, clutches her shirt, closes her eyes, and sighs, "Yeah, it still smells like her."

It was almost four years ago, on a Thursday afternoon on March 15, 2018, when the under-construction pedestrian bridge, which Florida International University (FIU) promised would take students over the busy Tamiami Trail , collapsed, killing six people, including Gina and Orlando Durán's 18-year-old daughter, Alexa, a freshman at FIU.

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For days, weeks and months after the tragedy, Gina clung to that shirt, crawling into her daughter's bed, sobbing.

Grief prevented her from dismantling her youngest daughter's bedroom, which remains as it was, right down to the pink piggy bank on her nightstand and the corkboard above her bed, with all the gray and green varsity lettering on it, which she won as a cheerleader and dancer at Archbishop McCarthy High School.

Pain caused her to panic every time she heard an ambulance siren: her legs itched, her hands gripped the wheel, and she resisted the urge to follow.

And grief threatened to end the Duráns' 29-year marriage, the death of a daughter remains too much to bear. But they found solace in going to the cemetery together, carefully selecting fresh flowers from the Publix in her neighborhood to place at her daughter's grave, talking to her, telling her about the week they'd had.

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The Duráns have another daughter, Dina, a few years older than her sister. She has not spoken publicly about what happened.

Now, as the fourth anniversary of Alexa's death approaches, Gina Durán says she feels stronger. She has joked with her husband again. When asked how long they've been together, he quipped, "Too long!"

The stages of grief

“There are five stages to the grieving process,” explains Gina Durán, as she sits in a black leather armchair in her Northwest Miami-Dade home, twirling her gold chain necklace. “Now I am in the fifth stage: acceptance. I used to think that she would come home at any moment. But now I have accepted that he will not return. I no longer wait for her, although I love her and miss her so much.

He no longer hates FIU or any of the companies involved in building the bridge. Last spring, around the time Alexa would have graduated with a political science degree from FIU, Gina Durán visited the West Miami-Dade campus. For the first time, he didn't feel like running away.

In late December, the Durans sold D'Dago, the family dry cleaner in Hialeah where Alexa used to work and where they kept "Alexa's corner."

With the new year ringing in, Gina plans to dismantle her daughter's bedroom, more than 1,400 days after the accident. She plans to frame the bulletin board and photos of her, and remove the rest of her belongings, including the pair of six-inch black stilettos stuffed into a Macy's bag that Alexa bought a few weeks before the death of her

Orlando Durán has visited his daughter's room less frequently than his wife, but the loss of his daughter, whom he considered his best friend, went through him with the same intensity.

“When she left, a part of me left too,” he says, adding that he hasn't been able to play the guitar or sing since she passed away.

Sitting next to his wife on the couch, he points to Alexa's high school graduation photo by the front door. He says goodbye to her every time he leaves her house.

“I honor Alexa,” she says.

But she's over the brunt of the trauma: “I'm much better. I have realized that life goes on.

'FIU accepted responsibility'

At 174 feet long and weighing 950 tons, the structure was to span an eight-lane stretch of Tamiami Trail, one of the busiest thoroughfares in South Florida. The footbridge was to protect pedestrians, especially students, many of whom live in Sweetwater and cross the Trail to reach FIU's Modesto A. Maidique campus.

At 1:47 p.m. On March 15, 2018, the bridge, which had been hoisted into place by special gantry cranes on the Saturday morning before the accident, broke at the north end, causing the entire structure to collapse, burying cars at red light on Tamiami Trail (Southwest Eighth Street, Calle Ocho) and 109th Avenue. The collapse killed a construction worker and five people who were in their cars.

Alexa, driving her father's Toyota 4Runner, was heading east on the Trail when steel and concrete cascaded down, crushing her to death as she sat behind the wheel, waiting for the light to change.

FIGG Bridge Group, the parent company of a network of Tallahassee bridge design and construction firms, designed the $14.3 million project, funded with federal grant money. Munilla Construction Management, a politically connected construction company in Miami, and inspectors Bolton, Pérez & Associates Consulting Engineers also worked on it. The FIU proposed the project and helped supervise it.

After a 19-month investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in October 2019 that FIU, the Florida Department of Transportation, as well as the project's design-build team and inspectors, did not they reacted appropriately to the cracking and made a fatal mistake by leaving the busy Southwest Eighth Street open while a construction crew carried out emergency work on the bridge.

Munilla Construction filed for bankruptcy in March 2019. The company reached a $103 million settlement with the families of the victims, and later re-emerged as Magnum Construction Management.

In January 2021, the Federal Highway Administration banned FIGG Bridge Engineers and its lead engineer, W. Denney Pate, from participating in federal contracting for nine years. The state of Florida continues to do business with the company.

The FIU plans to build a new bridge with a new design and "enhanced safety measures."

“The case is closed,” said Orlando Durán, also an engineer.

“Of all the companies involved in the bridge collapse, none apologized except FIU. FIU accepted its responsibility and apologized,” he added.

Campus Memorial

FIU and the Duráns have been working on a campus memorial for Alexa, intended for the fourth anniversary of her death. The memorial will consist of a bronze statue of Alexa sculpted by Brian Hanlon, who decided to include 18 doves, one for each year of her life. Five poles will surround Alexa, symbolizing the other victims. A ceremony will be held on March 15, in which a minute of silence will be observed at 1:47 p.m.

The bridge collapse affected the FIU community and damaged the university's reputation.

Nearly four years later, however, FIU President Mark Rosenberg believes that the bridge collapse, gruesome as it was, allowed FIU to learn from its mistakes.

“You probably learn more from failures than from successes,” he said. “And we certainly have learned a lot. If you think about it, look how we have recovered. Look how we have taken that adversity and used it to make it a better university.”

Some members of the FIU community, however, prefer not to discuss the accident and its aftermath.

Gina Durán, who often talks about her daughter, doesn't like that. "That's stupid ---," she said. "I like to talk about her and what happened."

He thinks that talking about the collapse of the bridge and its causes will help prevent a future disaster.

Now ask the FIU to make sure the bridge doesn't fall down again; otherwise, he says, the death of his daughter will have meant nothing.

“It will be in vain if this happens again,” he warned.