Is Your Safety Being Censored?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee has some bragging rights when it comes to bridges. It’s one of four states in the country with a perfect record for inspecting them on time. It’s No. 1 when it comes to spending every available dollar on upkeep and repair.

Video: Bridge Inspectors Leave Info Out Of Reports, They Say

“We really pride ourselves on trying to make sure the people of Tennessee don’t have to really think about bridges when they drive over them, because there’s confidence that the condition of them is always the best it can be,” said Paul Degges, Tennessee Department of Transportation chief engineer.

But glowing records are only as solid as the record keepers.

Some of the state’s bridge inspectors, with decades of experience, are raising questions about the integrity of their own work.

“I was just more amazed as I went,” said Howard Stahl. “It was almost every report I looked at, something, a sketch, a measurement, a comment, something was left off of it, on almost every report. I almost couldn’t believe it.”

A bridge in Giles County that washed away may be the first red flag. After the incident, bridge inspectors reviewed their reports and said they were surprised by what they didn’t find.

They had been watching a gap in an abutment, and it had grown from a quarter of an inch, to a half an inch and finally a full inch.

Stahl said he documented in his reports “showing how it progressed over six years, and that comment was stricken out of our report and never was turned in ... It wasn’t in danger of immediate collapse, but, you know, a little over a year later, it did collapse."

The Channel 4 I-Team examined the field report and the report that was turned in to the state.

The field crews started back-tracking, as did the I-Team. The I-Team compared thick files, page by page, on more than 55 bridges that inspectors called into question among the thousands they check in Lincoln, Giles, Lawrence, Marshal, Bedford and Moore counties.

The I-Team found many discrepancies on identical forms written in the field and those submitted by a supervisor to the state. Measurements were incorrect or missing and sketches often weren’t included, as well as some observations of gaps or voids that could flag future problems.

More than once, the final reports ignored crew notations about drift, which is when brush and foreign material gets snagged on the structure. Experts said that can wear a bridge out over time.

One observation that the inspectors in the field rated fair, the supervisor still noted as “good” in the final analysis.

"We don’t measure the value of a bridge inspection by the pound,” said Degges. “It’s not the more information the better. We need to have relevant information in the book.”

The federal book on bridge inspection encourages sketches, diagrams and detail, and states “original inspection notes should not be altered without consultation with the inspector who wrote the notes.”

Stahl said that hasn’t happened.

“Nobody’s consulted with the inspector before it was changed," said Stahl.

Bob Stammer, a Vanderbilt professor and engineer, reviewed some of the reports.

“If the manual says provide sketches and photos, and they’re taken, I don’t know any compelling reason why they shouldn’t be readily available," Stammer said.

Still, the state is standing by Fayetteville supervisor Jeff Scott, who chose not to be interviewed but said in a statement, “I would never compromise the integrity of the program or the safety of the people, including my own family, who travel over bridges in my district."

The state said in all but one case, Scott properly edited and summarized the inspections, and none of the omissions or discrepancies would have changed the overall rating of a bridge.

“It’s really the supervisor's responsibility of what goes into the report, so having a lot of small insignificant things may cloud or water down those more specific things that are of significance,” said TDOT engineer Wayne Seger.

Seger hesitated to call the observations irrelevant.

“What you have to look at is, are these issues that would have a substantive impact on the condition rating of the bridge, and that’s what we found -- that there was nothing that would have a change in how the bridge was rated," said Degges.

Stahl said TDOT does not trust the judgment of its inspectors.

“Everything we do now we’re actually told now before we leave the office how to grade something and what pictures to make before we ever get to the bridge," said Stahl.

Stahl said he fears he’s putting his job on the line after 28 years, but he said he doesn’t want future inspectors -- or, more importantly, the drivers -- shortchanged.

“If we put it in the report, that’s something we want to monitor the next time we're there,” said Stahl.

As for the original bridge in Giles County that collapsed, Stahl suggests the warning signs would have been there.

“Somebody would have picked up on the fact that this thing was settling into the creek at a pretty rapid pace," said Stahl. “If this continues on, it could happen again.”

There is a disagreement about the cause of that bridge collapse. Though state reports and photos use the word “failure” to describe the bridge, the state said it was the approach to the structure and not the actual bridge that collapsed, and only after unusually heavy rain.

Stimulus money allowed it to be quickly rebuilt.

Despite what the I-Team found, the state said it has no plans to do a full audit of the Region 3 bridge inspection office in Fayetteville.

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