Decay noted at Laval overpass years before collapse, inquiry told

An engineer who flagged cracks in an overpassin Laval, Que.,two years before it collapsed and killed five people told the inquiry into the tragedy that he wasn't too worried about long-term degradation because the structure was scheduled for eventual repairs.

Gilbert Boss,a Transport Quebec engineer stationed in Laval, north of Montreal, told commissioners investigating the Concorde overpass collapse late Monday that he submitted a service note to the ministry in 2004 after he found large fissures in the concrete overpass on Highway 19.

In his note, Boss whois back before the inquiry on Tuesday said the observed damage suggested there was more disintegration than what was visible to the naked eye.

He suggested closing the highway and lifting the overpass to further assess damages. "The only intervention, from my perspective, that was pertinent was to raise the overpass to determine the extent of what needed repair," he testified.

The engineers who followed up on Boss's report concluded there was nothing to warrant immediate intervention, even though a subsequent inspection noted "anomalies" and other "degradation."

Christian Mercier, the engineer who conducted a second inspection in 2005 after Boss's note arrived at the ministry, told the commission on Monday he found the overpass's exterior casing to be in "good condition."

Mercier's report concluded that although degradation was noticeable, repairs would be carried out when greater damages were detected.

That conclusion was satisfactory, Boss testified.

"There were no flagrant signs that the structure was behaving abnormally," he said.

The service notes first surfaced during the Quebec election campaign whenAction Dmocratique du Qubec Leader Mario Dumont pulled them out during the leaders' debate.

He brandished the notesand accused Liberal Premier Jean Charest and his government of negligence for ignoring problems with the overpass that were clearly documented.

Hearings on the Concorde overpass are expected to continue all week.

Former Quebec premier Pierre Marc Johnson is heading the commission appointed to determine the causes of the collapse.

A section of the Concorde overpass broke off and crashed on the underlying road in Sept. 30, 2006, killing five people.