Construction safety standards and methods have changed dramatically during the 25 years since the Cline Avenue bridge disaster in East Chicago claimed 14 lives.

Despite the changes that make it unlikely, there's always a possibility a similar tragedy could occur, said Jim Strayer, business manager for the 25,000 members of the Northwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, and Dewey Pearman, executive director of the Construction Advancement Foundation.

"It could be possible for the same thing to happen now," Strayer said Thursday. "Construction is very dangerous occupation."

Construction methods are drastically different today than they were in 1982, and that would make the outcome of the situation different, he said.

"Building practices that occurred then wouldn't occur now," Strayer said. "Safety standards are much better. At the time, OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) was only 10 years old and safety laws were rarely enforced."

Pearman agrees that the inherent dangers in an industry that combines moving men, moving materials and moving machinery makes it impossible to say an accident like the bridge collapse couldn't happen in 2007.

"But I'm confident that the procedures in place now are much, much more rigorous than they were then."

And the entire construction industry is much more committed to safety than it was 25 years ago, Pearman said.

"And that runs through the whole sector -- from project owners to building trades craftsmen to the contractor," he said. "Everyone is very safety conscious these days."

'I knew people had died'

Safety regulations coupled with insurance costs have changed the industry, said both Pearman and Strayer said. Now even a minor lost-time construction accident can make a company's insurance rates skyrocket and its bids uncompetitive.

Today, the design flaw that brought down the bridge wouldn't occur, or if it did, it would be identified, Pearman said.

"In Northwest Indiana, as in many parts of the country, all craftsmen are required to take safety classes -- particularly OSHA 10-hour training," he said. "Part of that is specifically is intended to teach craftsmen to identify potentially dangerous situations, including design flaws, and what to do when they spot them."

Strayer was a ironworker at the time of the accident. The bridge that carried Cline Avenue more than 100 feet above the ground collapsed on April 15, 1982, immediately killing 12 workers and injuring 16 others. Two men later died from the effects of their injuries.

He had worked on the construction of the Cline Avenue extension from Chicago Avenue to the Indiana East-West Toll Road eight different times during its six years it was being built.

But Strayer was recuperating from back surgery when he got word of the accident, in which about 444 feet of the 1.6-mile bridge over Riley Road and the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal fell.

"I was there 45 minutes after it happened," he said Thursday. "I put cranes together. I helped pull bodies out. When I heard (about the accident) I knew people had died. I knew some who did."

Changing regulations

Strayer's always believed the job was being done safely and won't speculate on who is at fault for the disaster.

"They had many -- two or three -- meetings a week on safety," he said. "The contractor listened to all the suggestions."

The ill-fated "post tensioning" bridge, made of concrete embedded with steel cable, was supported by scaffolding -- temporary bracing -- and huge columns that sat on 3-foot-by-3-foot concrete piers during the period when the concrete set.

"As they poured the concrete, one of the piers blew out and then there was a domino effect and the bridge fell," Strayer said. "There was no reinforcing steel in the blocks at the bottom, so the pier was crushed from the weight of the bridge."

Today, the scaffolding that failed and was the major cause of the collapse would be engineered differently. The piers would be reinforced with steel and engineered differently, he said.

"The whole world has changed," Strayer said. "Construction is safer now by 1,000 percent. They say 'safety rules are written in blood.' When something happens, it creates change."