It’s unclear who shot a video of a construction excavator knocking down a large portion of the westbound Washington Bridge last Friday, sending debris slamming down onto two barges and into the Seekonk River.
After the video was widely shared on social media, more uncertainty followed. And a question: Is the demolition supposed to happen like that?
Yes, according to Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) Director Peter Alviti, Jr.
“Demolition is not a delicate kind of activity in construction,” Alviti told WPRO’s Gene Valicenti Monday morning. ”The result is exactly what the plan called for.”
The collapse was all part of the demolition plan for the westbound Interstate 195 side of the bridge submitted by Warwick-based Aetna Bridge Co., Alviti said. The company was awarded the state’s $100 million contract last summer to tear down the bridge.
Aetna’s demolition plan submitted to RIDOT in June called for crews to position barges with bin walls beneath the bridge to catch any falling debris. Shallow parts of the river are supposed to be shielded with barge-mounted platforms.
RIDOT spokesperson Charles St. Martin said Monday that state transportation officials visited the site over the weekend and determined that Aetna executed the plan “precisely and in a safe and controlled manner.”
“And at no time was this demolition a danger to the eastbound bridge,” St. Martin said in an emailed statement Monday.
The video of the collapsing debris first posted to X on Sunday by Providence-based podcaster Bill Bartholomew has had roughly 17,000 views. Bartholomew said via text Monday that the video was sent to him by a confidential source.
The same video shared on Facebook Sunday by East Providence Mayor Bob DaSilva, received over 106,000 views.
“Hopefully this large section coming down expedites the demolition,” DaSilva wrote.
St. Martin said only a small amount of debris entered the water and that RIDOT has been coordinating with the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) to remove the debris from the river.
CRMC spokesperson Laura Dwyer confirmed that regulators were on site Monday and that all work done by Aetna was done in compliance with the demolition permit the company obtained last year.
“The contractor is handling the matter according to our program,” Dwyer said in an email.
Even a small amount of debris is still a cause for concern, said Save the Bay Advocacy Director Jed Thorp.
“Allowing demolished concrete and other debris to fall into the river could have several negative impacts to the Seekonk River, including impacts to water quality from the debris itself, and by disturbing historical contaminants in the bottom sediment,” Thorp said in an emailed statement Monday.
The collapsing debris also caught the attention of Kansas-based geotechnical engineer and Kansas-based Casey Jones, who regularly posts YouTube videos about infrastructure topics — including the Washington Bridge.
In a video posted Saturday, Jones called on RIDOT to halt the demolition in order to conduct a thorough safety review after sharing images from a GoLocalProv article first published the same day and later updated on Sunday.
“It needs to be taken very very seriously — this is what they call a ‘near miss’ accident in the industry,” Jones said.
Alviti however, cautioned Rhode Islanders to take social media engineering opinions with a big grain of salt.
“Offering opinions — particularly professional engineering opinions — outside a person’s area of expertise from 1,000 miles away on YouTube is frankly, at best, irresponsible,” he said. “At worst: Dangerous and illegal from the standpoint of laws governing professional engineer conduct.”
Aetna Bridge Co. began demolishing the westbound span in September, but work was paused for nearly a month to allow state investigators to document its condition as part of the state’s lawsuit against 13 firms that previously worked on it. Work resumed on Oct. 11 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025.
The state plans to award the contract to rebuild the bridge by June 6, 2025.
Cynicism, however, will likely remain throughout the project. In the words of one Reddit user on Saturday: “Like the hopes and dreams of Rhode Islanders. Crushed like that barge.”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
