Walkway Collapse: Corroded Cables?

Transportation engineers discovered corroded steel cables in the rubble of a pedestrian bridge that collapsed as racing fans carried grills and coolers out of Lowe's Motor Speedway.

More than 100 people were treated for injuries after falling 17 feet to the highway at the close of The Winston stock car race Saturday night. About half of them remained in area hospitals early Monday, with two reported in critical condition.

Although the corrosion of the steel bands may have been caused by moisture, exactly why the walkway collapsed remained unclear.

"It could be a material problem, or it could be a construction problem, maybe structural fatigue," said Don Goins, a state transportation engineer. "We just have to look at that, and we don't know the answer yet."

The NASCAR all-star race was winding down about 11:15 p.m. EDT Saturday when two loud cracks were heard above the murmur of the crowd crossing the pedestrian bridge from the speedway to parking lots. Several spectators say they heard a loud booming noise, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"All of a sudden, the bottom fell out from everybody," said Roger Dunham, 43, of Concord, who was hospitalized at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte for a back injury. With screams piercing through the air, dozens of people fell with the debris onto U.S. Highway 29.

"I thought it was fireworks, or the cars backfiring on the road, then you felt it give way," said Chris Hill, who was nearby.

"I wanted to help people who were hurt a lot worse than I was, but I couldn't do much," Dunham said. "All I could do was hold this guy's head who was bleeding."

A total of 107 people initially received medical treatment, track spokesman Jerry Gappens said. Fifty-three remained hospitalized Sunday, two in critical condition, officials said. Medics already working the race were able to reach the accident quickly and treat the injured.

An 80-foot section of the 320-foot bridge connecting the track to the parking lots snapped in half. The collapsed bridge section, still connected to the intact bridge parts, was slumped in a V in the middle of the closed highway Sunday. The wreckage blocking the highway was removed Sunday night. There were no vehicles on the road at the time of the collapse.

Don Idol, an assistant engineer with the state Department of Transportation, said steel bands in the concrete-and-steel bridge failed. Exposed in the rubble, the steel showed signs of corrosion.

Idol said he also saw several 3-foot deep cracks - each as small as 1-16th of an inch wide - underneath three spans in the failed bridge section that did not crumble in the highway. The cracks were obvious signs of possible problems inside the bridge, he said.

"Cracks would have been a flag for us," Idol told The Charlotte Observer.

The $1 million walkway was built in 1995 for pedestrian traffic only. Iwas inspected when it first opened, but no one knew whether it had been inspected since. The speedway owns the walkway; state-owned bridges must be inspected every two years.

The walkway, and another one 500 yards away, carried thousands of fans over four-lane highway to parking lots across the way.

State engineers recommended to speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler that the track use concrete sections stronger than the sections that were installed but still met building code standards, The Observer reported Monday.

"If we were designing that bridge, we would have designed it for a little heavier load," Benton Payne, division engineer for the state transportation department, said Sunday.

Speedway spokesman Jerry Gappens said late Sunday he was unaware of those recommendations.

Wheeler said the other similar walkway will be closed until it is deemed safe.

"This is the worst thing you go through, when spectators get hurt," he said. "But we are not concerned about the safety of this place (the speedway), because I feel it's very safe."

This week's events leading to Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 will continue as planned.

This is the third tragedy involving the speedway in three years. After a race in May 1998, five people were killed when a helicopter hit a power line while flying from the speedway to the Monroe airport.

On May 1, 1999, three spectators were killed when a collision during an Indy Racing League race sent a tire spinning into the stands. Eight other people were injured. Earlier this month, a lawsuit filed by families of the three victims was settled for an undisclosed amount before it went to trial.

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