A South Florida driver had a shockingly close call this week when a piece of concrete plummeted from the ceiling of the Henry E. Kinney Tunnel, shattering his rear window and calling into question the safety of the tunnel's recent renovations. Gary Gerbino was maneuvering his way through the Fort Lauderdale tunnel on Tuesday when the incident occurred, leaving him shaken and his vehicle damaged. "And then crash, immediately I didn’t know what the heck happened so I turned around and I was startled, and my complete back window was crashed," Gerbino told NBC Miami. "It was scary, really scary. I was shaking."
The gravity of the potential harm was not lost on Gerbino, who was alone in the car at the time. "If I had a kid in the backseat they’d be dead," he said in a sentiment shared across both media outlets covering the story. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) swiftly took action to inspect the tunnel, closing one northbound lane until 3 p.m. this past Thursday, as NBC Miami reported. However, the closure has done little to alleviate public concerns, as the tunnel had only recently undergone a facelift intended to last.
This incident raised eyebrows as the tunnel had indeed been closed for repairs and improvements completed last year. "It’s all been fixed," Gerbino told WFLA. "It’s brand new, and why is the ceiling falling?" His experience casts doubt on the structural integrity of the tunnel, despite a substantial 2021 construction project which addressed a myriad of concerns including the removal of delaminated tiles and repairing spalls.
FDOT is now facing scrutiny as Gerbino urges them to reevaluate the condition of the tunnel, suggesting that future incidents could have dire consequences. "They should close it to investigate and see what’s going on," he said to NBC Miami. This concern seems warranted as FDOT Communications Manager Guillermo Canedo pointed to an earlier event where a vehicle taller than the tunnel's clearance limit struck a section of the ceiling. Canedo reminded motorists in his statement to WFLA to adhere to height clearance warnings to avoid such hazards. With the agency's response in general terms and the specifics of when the taller vehicle hit the tunnel still unclear, Gerbino and others who frequent the tunnel might well continue to look overhead with a measure of unease.
