Questions are being raised after a woman was hit by a light pole in Boston's Seaport this week, leaving her severely injured. Now residents want to know if warning signs were ignored.
NBC10 Boston has learned the city of Boston was made aware of the conditions of the poles before the tragedy occurred, but did not do anything to fix them.
An inspection report done by the state back in January of this year showed the poles were cracked and corroded in multiple places. NBC10 Boston asked Boston Mayor Michelle Wu about the report’s findings and why nothing was done right away.
“Even though the inspection was done several months ago, the city only received the report in early August of this year and we engaged technical experts two days later,” Wu responded.
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A spokesperson for the mayor said they do not know why it took so long to receive the report once it was complete. The mayor said the experts are still developing a plan based on the report, but nowhere in it did it say the poles were critical.
“The report identified them as fair not emergency in terms of the condition of the structure. We’re not sure if it was just a very quick acceleration over this period. We have had some intense weather since then, but the timeline needs to move faster,” Wu said.
The city has since removed nearly two-dozen light poles of the same age from the bridge out of an abundance of caution.
Boston City Council President Ed Flynn is calling for a citywide inspection off bridges and light poles. He is also filing a request for a hearing to figure out what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
“Fair means that they’re not in good shape," Flynn said. "We need to find out what happened and why it happened."
