Miami-Dade County spent $3M to replace a bridge. The project stalled, leaving one homeowner with $100k in repairs – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports
An effort to replace an old bridge is creating some new problems for a South Florida homeowner. 7News’ Heather Walker investigates.
Kathy Thomas has lived in her Miami-Dade home for decades.
Kathy Thomas: “I bought this house in May, June, right before Hurricane Andrew in 1992.”
Her house survived Hurricane Andrew. But she’s afraid it might not survive a plan to replace a canal bridge just outside her backyard.
Kathy Thomas: “And there’s a crack that goes around the wall here.”
The bridge is on Caribbean Boulevard and crosses the canal between Southwest 103rd Avenue and Southwest 103rd Place. It was built in 1963.
Miami-Dade County announced it would spend $3 million to replace it in 2021.
The county promised it would take a little more than a year to complete.
Kathy Thomas: “Here we are in 2025 and the bridge is a dinosaur. It’s never been finished.”
Heavy equipment was moved in behind Kathy’s home in late 2021.
Crews dredged the canal and piled everything against the fence in her backyard.
Kathy Thomas: “I was so surprised to come home one day and find a five foot wall of coral rock where I couldn’t even open the fence gate in my backyard.”
This piece of machinery was then brought in to drill massive metal panels into the ground.
Kathy says it caused her house to shake.
Kathy Thomas: “I have the sound here if you’d like to hear it. It was sort of like ‘Jurassic Park,’ the movie where they got the glass and you see the dinosaurs walking and you see the glass is vibrating. That’s exactly what it was inside my house.”
Early last year, construction came to a screeching halt. Workers disappeared.
Kathy says they left behind a mess, and some major issues in and around her home.
Kathy Thomas: “Well, I first noticed cracks in the tile.”
Kathy believes the vibrations from the piledriving have damaged her home’s foundation.
Her patio floors have become uneven, and a wall has shifted out of place.
Kathy Thomas: “You can see that whole wall is hanging off of the foundation.”
She had her home checked by an engineer.
A report blamed the damage on “…shifting and movement of underlying soil caused by associated bridge construction activities such as sheet and pile driving related vibrations…”
Miami-Dade County’s Department of Transportation and Public Works hired a private company to replace the bridge.
The department says the contractor “…adhered to all required specifications, including vibration monitoring and property surveys for the subject property…”
However, the county fired that contractor last year.
Kathy Thomas: “What is left there is just the bare bones of what a bridge should be.”
We reached out to the company hired by the county — no one has returned our calls.
Kathy says it could cost more than $100,000 to fix all the damage to her home. She believes she shouldn’t have to be the one to pay.
Kathy Thomas: “Why should I pay for the damage that was done to my home from a county project?”
We told Miami-Dade County about the damage to Kathy’s home.
It said: “While DTPW has received feedback from neighboring property owners throughout the project, none have raised concerns related to vibrations. Nonetheless, we have connected directly with the homeowner to review and address her concerns.”
Kathy’s concerns are only growing. The county is now accepting bids to restart the bridge project.
Kathy Thomas: “And so what’s going to happen when the new company comes and begins work again? Is my house going to be subjected to more types of construction damage?”
The new bridge is not expected to be finished until 2030, and Kathy is worried a lot more trouble could lie ahead.
Heather Walker, 7News.
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