Ferry Dock Collapse 13

[dik]

"At least seven people were killed and several others injured Saturday after part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

It happened as crowds gathered on the island for a celebration of its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

At least 20 people were plunged into the water when a gangway collapsed on the visitor ferry dock shortly before 4 p.m., Georgia DNR Capt. Chris Hodge said at a Saturday night news conference. A McIntosh County commissioner previously said a boat hit the dock but a DNR spokesperson later told The Associated Press there was no collision and it is unclear why the dock collapsed."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/sapelo-island-georgia-boat-dock-collapse/index.html

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So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Sym P. le]

It continues to look as if Crescent has some serious engineering issues. The St. Mary's incident appears to have torn the bull nose stock off the gangway. They also seem to have a one size fits all strategy. That same hinge is adequate for a thirty foot single wide as it is for an eighty foot double wide and everything in-between.

 

[Garbage1]

Agree with your thoughts, and bullnose is depicted as upside down U-channel, and not a boxed section......... OMG.

St Mary's builds stronger gangway

Horton said not only did they reconstruct their gangway after that 2022 collapse injured 17 people, but they put in additional safety barriers to prevent a future tragedy.
"When we had the new gangway built it actually took a little bit more time than we originally anticipated because we did beef up the construction of it. We put in a couple of safety measures in there too, in the event something like this would happen again," he said.

 

[Garbage1]

WHEELER STREET BOAT RAMP GANGWAY REPLACEMENT

AWARD WAS PRESENTED TO COASTAL ENGINEERING LLC IN THE AMOUNT OF $ 194,200.00

St Mary's did a bang up job on requirements for replacement gangway. I have attached the 5 documents I found. Lot's of focus on Engineering Calculations Package prior to fabrication, and lots of focus and requirements on Weld Quality...... I have not been able to find the detail results of St Mary's investigation of their gangway failure.

Ga Procurement Div

 

[Sym P. le]

I guess I see things different than the media.


News4JAX The Local Station - Ramp inspection report of Sapelo Island gangway found no issues 10 months prior to dock collapse

Here is what I see first.

... followed by bad welding

The media did not show the letter or provide any context. Instead their report puffed the state employee report of seeing stuff floating in the water and other folks, presumably deceased, on the shore. We already know there was plenty to be concerned about and we're looking at the same information.

 

[Sym P. le]

This is one time I wish I was wrong but it appears the deck planks were merely tacked in place top side. Given the abysmal workmanship on the bottom side, these gangway systems are living on the edge. Even the center handrail is only tacked to the top of the planks. It's difficult to say if popped welds could have shifted loads enough to induce buckling. The buckling axis was not perpendicular to the length of the gangway so there may have been other factors at play.



Edit: I was wrong. This New York Times image which catches the secondary gangway has better resolution and picks up the continuous stitch welds. I wonder if the side rail extrusion is the same?

 

[Garbage1]

Tack welds are temporary welds to hold material in place during assembly and prior to permanent welding. Crescent's "Quiet" welds is interesting spin. These "Quiet" welds explain why deck easily buckled upward in compression, under severe deflection.

Both gangways failed around 3 years worth of load cycling. Large deflections and movements per cycle over a period of time fatigues aluminum material and welds, thus breaking the temporary "Quiet" welds.

Aluminum is more difficult to weld correctly than steel and more affected by heat generated during welding.

Interesting around 3 year point is when both gangways failed, with manufactures 3 year warranty. Now I am NOT implying manufacture dialed in design this way, but most manufactures pick warranty periods based upon data or experience with product.

Structural adhesives are also used to bond aluminum components to avoid heat induced brittleness. Both welding and adhesives require proper material preparation prior to bonding.

Manufactures of lead acid batteries are an interesting product as far as warranty period vs price charged to customer. Lead acid battery manufactures can dial in the chemistry very closely to ensure battery failure, within a small window of time, before or after the end of the warranty period.

 

[Sym P. le]

The underside welds were likely given to novice. Aside from poor engineering, the manufacturing is very suspect. The underside welds can only be tacks given stock used.

Perhaps an expectation of bouncy docks let all of this fly under the radar.

 

[FacEngrPE]

The rub rails appear to be unstiffened aluminum sheet, This is going to provide a negligible additional amount of load capacity, as any significant compression will cause it to buckle.

 

[Sym P. le]

Purchasing uploaded 42 files today, various P.O.'s and contracts directly with Crescent. I don't see any shop drawings or engineering calculations and I haven't read through the "contracts" c/w extensions for engineering requirements or warranties though there are insurance req's. Even if GDNR had themselves covered for their direct purchases, we have already seen the Crescent invoice to the contractor for the failed gangway and I've yet to post further about the specifications on load requirements. My earlier posts cover that fairly well though it could use some clarification.

Garbage, that was a good catch on the St. Mary's files. I would think GDNR would be demanding plenty of reviews for Crescent products at this stage. Any progress on joining the Box Drive?

FacEngrPE, I was just looking for a glimmer of hope that there would be redundancies to prevent a small defect from turning catastrophic. In this case it looks like the whole concept was misguided and the table was set for buckling. I noticed the pony trusses bent off the top of the side extrusions so the platform was quite rigid, even with the poor welding underneath.

 

[Garbage1]

SymPle, I signed up for Sapelo Collapse Updates from the GaDNR, and verified subscription by logging in, but Not receiving anything.

When you look at S&W's envelope design drawing, notice the design depicts cross members welded in between beams of gangway, with decking applied to top, and with deck ribs running perpendicular to structural cross members underneath and parallel to main beams. This provides far better buckling resistance and load capacity than as builts.

Crescent chose to ignore deck substructure design layout, but follow the depicted Howe Truss layout. Or more likely, got Georgia Officials to bite on accepting their marketplace 'Modular - Expandable' production line product 'as-is' or with limited warranty. It would be interesting to read 'fine print' of Crescent's Warranty and perhaps what it exludes. Most manufactures warranties only covers replacing or repairing product, and specially excludes liability from injury caused by using product.

S&W deck substructure design offered substantially more resistance to many failure modes, and integration of individual beams and deck into a system. Crescent's temporary 'Quiet Tack' welding of deck to beams did not provide adequate integration on beams into structural system.

Crecent's lack of competent engineered design is prime failure, coupled with poor manufacturing processes and quality control are secondary. The third major failure is probably the Georgia Procurement System for likely bypassing competent engineering design and oversight of process.

I find it concerning that Georgia is dumping massive amounts of documents covering their ass, but not the actual paper trail that tells the whole story. Shop drawings with customer approvals, and actual final contractural arrangement with Crescent. My guess is Crescent was a Vendor only by Purchase Order. Therefore perhaps distancing themselves from guaranteed loading requirements?

I wonder if St Mary's settled with Crescent and agreed to seal court documents? I also wonder if 4 cases filed by victims of that collapse have been settled and sealed too? Those lawsuits were against City with no mention of Crescent? Why? Again purchase order agreement coupled with piss poor Government oversight in procurement process?

 

[Sym P. le]

GDNR has been purchasing directly from Crescent for years. The failed gangway may or may not be an anomaly in that it was wrapped up in a larger contract where GDNR became the eventual owner. These are off the shelf (on demand) items which no-one has questioned til now. They were not custom engineered for each installation. I wonder if accessibility issues necessitated longer gangways to reduce the slope to docks with the unintended consequence of attracting greater effective loads during surges. As such, this issue is a project management issue where professional oversight was lulled into a stupor. As you pointed out, St. Mary's is wise to the issue and Georgia as a whole will move to catch up.

There are 1700 files in the drop box. I don't know if you can see them through the email notification system. I signed up for that as well and it doesn't seem to be the same thing.

 

[Garbage1]

If you search the State-Wide Georgia Procurement Registry for Crescent, you get Crescent Equipment Company is an bidder and Supplier to the State of Georgia. So clearly you are correct in that Crescent was 'GSA' like approved state supplier, and requirements developed by GaDNR were Not used properly when Procurement System forced 'Square Peg into Round Hole.'

So more likely State Small Business Rules 'Trumped' over GaDNR engineering requirements! System Failure!

Georgia Procurement Registry

Edit: Crescent did not come up on list as of 1 Jan 2024, therfore does not look they are NOT currently an "certified" supplier.

First search was just list of bidders and suppliers. Second list was for 'Certified' Suppliers. Different links on site.

Question is now, who sent Drop Box Link? Was it GaDNR or Ga Statewide Procurement Dept?

The FOIA process requires form sent to State Records Division

 

[Garbage1]

I will pass on FOIA request to Ga Records Dept. That has to be route taken by News Investigative Reporter and perhaps SymPle.

 

[Sym P. le]

It wasn't a FOIA. It was a "Hey, can you loop me in on the media DropBox?" request and the next day the invite appeared in my Inbox. As the news report I posted the other day exemplifies, the one with the ghost letter, more eyes are better.

 

[Garbage1]

I also sent an email last week to "trrevor.santos@dnr.ga.gov" who was the GaDRR person emailing the investigative reporter. Grabbed email address from the video by reporter. I also heard nothing from this person either........

Without knowing what you actual did, no way to know if they still adding folks via the path you used.

Any FOIA request needs to include Crescent Equipment Company, and cover a period of time before St. Mary's till current date. So say starting in 2018 or so?

Now Crescent Equipment Company may or may not be related to Crescent Docks and Marine Services. May be totally different company. That is why I searched for "Crescent" only in field.... Only hit was Crescent Equipment Company...

https://law.georgia.gov/key-issues/open-government/how-make-open-records-request

https://www.bizapedia.com/ga/crescent-equipment-co-inc.html

 

[Sym P. le]

Yes, that's who I sent my request to. The response came from K. I. () who owns the box. Perhaps you could send a request directly to her. An additional note was attached, "Please note that various records associated with the law enforcement investigation into the gangway collapse are being withheld according O.C.G.A. 50-18-72 (a)(4)."

 

[Garbage1]

Crescent Marine brings up this in GA Crops Division Database

 

[Garbage1]

I sent her and email as well for what it is worth.
Even the GA FOIA Open Records Request Site says some records may be withheld due to GA Law. So likely we will not get what we need due to ongoing investigation. What GaDNR would be sending only shows their end of process.
Very likely those documents are closely screened before release and definitely the critical documents we need likely will be withheld and may never be disclosed.

What really is needed now, is FOIA to obtain information on Crescent's Purchase Order Vendor/Supplier History with the State of Georgia.
The data indicates Crescent Equipment Company is also doing business as Crescent Docks and Marine Services. Perhaps under same Corporate Veil, as that is only active Crescent Corporation in Georgia.. The short lived one in Atlanta has been gone since 1995 and was only formed in 1989.

Crescent Equipment Company Founded in 1975 as per Crescent Marine's About Page

 

[Garbage1]

SymPle that person responded and I am now in and can see the mass of files...........
A quick look yields the Sapelo Purchase Order.

Clearly Cites ONLY Standard Georgia Supplier Terms and Conditions and NO Engineering or Loading Requirements!!!

Most GaDNR Purchase orders with Crescent Equipment Company are for smaller and shorter docks and such.......

 

[Garbage1]

Georgia's Standard Delivery Order Type Supplier Contracts with Crescent Equipment, for 2013 and 2024 start dates....

Image below from 2013 Multi-vendor Agency Contract, the purpose of the request with Crescent Equipment Co, Inc. was to manufacture and/or supply pre-fabricated fixed piers..........gangways............................etc.



Question is what exactly did RFQ include as far as specifications and requirements? I will also attach at end the following specification document:
"Sapelo Island Marsh & Meridian Dock Replacement 100% CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS
S & W Project No. – 18046.0
SECTION 05555 - ALUMINIUM MARINE STRUCTURES"