I-Team: City knew about light pole rot long before one fell and injured woman

BOSTON – Boston Police sounded the alarm after a woman was seriously injured by a falling, corroded light pole in the Seaport District, asking public works to inspect the damage, noting many poles in the area had rusted bases.

Professor James Lambrechts teaches at Wentworth Institute and is a civil engineer. He told the I-Team, “To have something look that bad, I mean, rusted through in most of the spots around the base … it shows a neglect in proper inspection. It’s a wake-up call that says, ‘Ya, we gotta go look at these things.'”

The I-Team found Tuesday’s incident was not the only wake-up call. The most recent bridge inspection from January included photos of the poles and found severe deficiencies in the steel that required repair ASAP.  

“They are dangerous. These are heavy poles and they’re going to hurt people when they fall,” said Lambrechts.

Boston 311 records show the city has known about the potential danger for nearly six years. In 2017, heavy winds toppled a pole. No one was hurt in that incident.

Stephen Ryan said he alerted the city about the deteriorating steel poles about a year ago and sent photo of the eroding concrete around the base. “I said the base of most of the light posts are seriously corroded. One has already fallen during a storm. I was just letting them know what I had seen on my daily walks over this bridge. The city responded back that the case was resolved, and apparently, it’s not.”

There were even more reports. On August 24, the city got another photo showing poles with holes rusted through. Twenty-seven days ago, the city got another message through 3-11, saying “half of them are rotted out.”

The bridge was built in 1996, so what’s causing the rot? 

“It is steel, it rusts, and it rusts quicker when exposed to salt – and road salt is the culprit I’m seeing in this one. It should be galvanized and properly coated. Guardrails along bridges – they stay in pretty good shape for 30-40 years because they’re galvanized and have a zinc coating. I think that should be done with these bases,” Lambrechts said.

So far, the city says it removed nearly two dozen rusted poles on the Moakley Bridge and took out several more on the Summer Street Bridge.

The city of Boston has a street light team to repair and inspect its more than 67 thousand street lights. But despite all the reports about the compromised lights on the Moakley Bridge, it appears nothing was done to replace them. 

“Obviously not doing enough inspections if this one got to be that badly rusted,”  Lambrechts said.

The city told the I-Team it got the state’s January inspection report eight months later, on August 1. Days later, it contacted an engineering firm to develop a work plan.