Chickens coming home to roost

Eileen McNamara has a good column in today's Globe about Monday's Big Dig calamity.

A decade ago, former state inspector general Robert Cerasoli warned of safety concerns with the tunnels and the lax state oversight of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff , the international engineering consortium that ran the project.

Last year, Edward M. Ginsburg , the retired Middlesex probate judge hired by the Turnpike Authority to recover damages, accused project managers of hiding information from his investigators and chastised state officials for having too cozy a relationship with contractors. ``They were all married to each other," he said after being fired for his efforts.

``My feeling was that it was not being taken care of," Ginsburg said last year. ``I mean it was going to be ignored or papered over. I just didn't think that was appropriate. And I wasn't going to be responsible for someone getting killed if one of those walls gave out again."

I doubt that there will be many people using the tunnel today. The traffic jams in Boston should be horrendous.

Then, in the same issue, Joan Vennochi equates the state's actions with the government actions re Katrina.

FOR POLITICIANS across America, Hurricane Katrina taught two valuable lessons.

When disaster strikes, return swiftly from vacation. Then, fire an underling.

Yesterday, Governor Mitt Romney followed the post-Katrina political guidebook. He interrupted his vacation. And he announced his intention to fire Matthew Amorello, the chairman and chief executive of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

Late Monday night, Milena Del Valle was killed when concrete ceiling tiles fell from the Ted Williams Tunnel connector. On Tuesday, Romney was back at the State House, trying to hang all of the blame for the Big Dig tunnel disaster around someone else's neck.

The governor's upper lip was uncharacteristically wet with sweat -- with good reason. He and his presidential ambitions were unexpectedly on the hot seat.

Update as of 3 p.m.
From the Globe:

Inspectors have already found 60 more problem areas in the eastbound lanes of the connector, which links the Massachusetts Turnpike with the Ted Williams Tunnel. Crews are still checking the westbound lanes.

Update 2 at 8:30 pm
From the Globe:

When anchor bolts gave way Monday night, 12-tons of ceiling tiles crashed into the tunnel, killing Milena Del Valle, 38, of Jamaica Plain.

“The problem with the anchor bolts was identified in the fall of 1999,” said Reilly, whose office has launched a negligent manslaughter investigation. “It was not only identified, but there was a plan to address that problem.”

Five of the anchor bolts gave way in the 1999 study, Reilly said, referencing documents unearthed during the probe by his office. Investigators are trying to determine what was done with the plan formulated to fix the problem.