The owner of a Dominican nightclub whose roof collapsed, killing 232, speaks for the first time

[JD Jones]

While many don’t want to hear it (especially those who knew someone that died there), not giving good maintenance to things is quite widespread among Dominicans. That is simply how it’s. Every Dominican knows that. That’s why whenever mentioned, the response is always “that’s no reason to excuse this” or just quietness.

Plus, there are news of schools/hospitals/etc all over the DR with roof leakage, parts of the roof falling, etc.
Here is the latest one on a bridge on Duarte Highway. Everyone that drives (or is driven) on that highways crosses that bridge which is owned by the government.

It isn’t just that. Not following the rules and regulations is widespread in the DR and it’s something of some classes, but the entire Dominican society from top to bottom. Constructing a home without getting all the permits is an example of something that is widespread.

Antonio Espaillat is a typical Dominican when it comes to giving good maintenance to many things. He can be pointed for the deaths (which wasn’t intentionally), but making “an example of him” for his lax maintenance when that is widespread in Dominican society is hypocritical at best. That needs to be changed, but it’s a change of the entire culture and not just one person who, like many Dominicans, don’t give good maintenance and in the required intervals of time a high priority.

Who remembers the time Las Américas Airport had buckets in parts of the waiting area because when it rain outside, it started to rain in the inside too.

Why do you think quite a few Dominicans buy a used house and destroy it and build a new one? Hint: You never know if the house was built with engineering short cuts!

That bridge in the video is like that from dumb truck drivers trying to fit under it.

 

[NALs]

That bridge in the video is like that from dumb truck drivers trying to fit under it.

Yes, and every year several bridges on the Merritt Parkway are also hit by trucks… but adequate maintenance prevents any of them from looking like that one. In fact, a bridge that looks like that one would be closed to traffic. Imagine what an engineer specializing in bridges in NY goes through every time he goes to the DR. There is a reason he stopped believing in the country.

Since that one is in the DR, the “protocol” is to don’t do anything until it gives or like the bridge that collapsed in Ponton, La Vega which many engineers were claiming what was done to that bridge was a disaster. Ironically, that bridge was part of the Duarte Highway too.