Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes is the fourth of the six construction workers who lost their lives from the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse whose portrait is now complete. I finished him a few days ago, but decided that perhaps today would be a better day to present him. Because he and the others represent the bedrock on which this country was founded.
Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes was the foreman of the eight man crew who were filling in the potholes atop the bridge. He was making his progress report in the truck, his good friend Dorlian Ronial Cabrera by his side. Suddenly everything collapsed, and they were plunged into the 46°F water. Two men were rescued alive. Alejandro and Dorlian were the first of the six whose bodies were recovered.
Who is to blame? It will take months, if not years, for the investigation into the various causes.
I believe a couple grains of blame belongs on my own shoulders. Why?
For 40 years I've lived in this town. I've seen the bridge hundreds of times on visits to Fort McHenry Park. During that time, I've witnessed container ships get bigger and bigger, and heavier and heavier. I started to wonder if the ships weren't getting too big for the bridge.
The day that thought came into my mind, why didn't I contact anyone in government? Why didn't I call my city council person? Why didn't I email all my state representatives? Why didn't I write my Congressman and Senators? One of them was former Senator Barbara Mikulski. Her staff answered everything I ever wrote, including helping me not get foreclosed on from my house. I'm still in the house, by the way.
Because I, like so many of us, took the bridge for granted. It was part of the skyline that seemed destined to hover forever. On March 26 this year, we all learned just how material and fragile it was. It took the lives of six men, the bedrock of America.
I have been guilty of what in Buddhism is called the sin of omission. As an artist I'm supposed to notice things, but an insufficiently buttressed bridge was not one of them.
Would my communication alone have been enough? It would at least have been there for someone to see. Now I'll never know.
Dear Alejandro, not only have you become one of my art teachers, but you leave behind a determination to keep watch everywhere I go. If I see something, I will say something. We are the watchful guardians of our surroundings whether we know it or not.
In Alejandro's, Jose's, Maynor's, Miguel's, Dorlian's, and Carlos' names, please become the active guardians of your environment every way you can.