A deep sense of fairness
Thomas F. Reilly was in one of those quiet rages that people who know him know too well.
He was striding through the fateful stretch of the Interstate 90 tunnel yesterday afternoon, past the point in the road where Milena Del Valle was crushed to death and her husband miraculously escaped.
Reilly paused, his eyes falling on a gouge in the side of the tunnel where the concrete fell from above, and he said of Angel Del Valle: ``He got out. How the hell he got out, I don't know. But he got out.
``You come down here thinking it's bad but it's limited," Reilly seethed. ``You know what? It's not limited. So you think it's just the eastbound side. Then you go to the westbound, and it's worse. Then you go into the HOV lane, and it's just as bad."
Reilly brought a visitor to the spot to demonstrate a point he had made in a media briefing a few minutes before, that the design differences between the Ted Williams Tunnel and the I-90 connector tunnel, located just a couple of hundred yards apart, were so vast as to be almost illogical. Why was one tunnel built so differently from the other? Why had one system failed and the other had not?
In other words, did someone cut corners in the name of money or time?
It had been a week since the disaster, yet the lights of an emergency vehicle still pulsed and flickered against the slate-colored walls.
The place was void of traffic, oddly quiet. Up above, on 120 feet of road, every one of the multiton concrete panels had been removed, exposing a vaulted black ceiling that made the place feel like a tomb.
Reilly motioned up a nearby onramp, toward massive fans suspended over the dimly lit road.
``See up there?" he said. ``See those things that look like jet engines? Those are held up by the epoxy system."
The same epoxy system, he left unstated, that failed to hold the concrete ceiling in place.
Reilly probably should have been a better watchdog over the Big Dig while the project was being built. He undoubtedly stands to gain politically from the criminal investigation he's launched in the tragedy's wake.
But know this about the guy: He has a deeper sense of fairness and a greater sense of empathy than just about any politician around.
Reilly led the visitor out of the tunnel onto the empty, sun-baked stretch of open-air highway that leads into the Ted Williams Tunnel.
He was asked if there will be criminal charges.
``That may not happen," he replied without hesitation. ``But I will get to the bottom of this. I will find out what went wrong."
Inside the Ted Williams Tunnel, it is meticulous and bright. ``Night and day," Reilly said, gazing around at the surroundings.
Overhead, the ceiling panels are white, not black. They are relatively small, rather than enormous. They are made, in part, of porcelain, not just concrete. Hemingway might have described this as a clean, well-lighted place.
``The weight load," Reilly said. ``It's nothing near the weight load. Seven hundred pounds [per tile] is a hell of a lot different than 3,000 pounds" per panel .
He pointed out that the Ted Williams Tunnel and the fateful stretch of the I-90 connector tunnel were built at the same time, in the early 1990s, though the ceiling wasn't added to the connector until 1999, and then it was a dramatically different design.
Why?
``Did they make these decisions based on money, based on time?" Reilly asked. ``Why were these decisions made? We owe the answers to the family. We owe it to the public."
He'll probably get them. Reilly's a lot of things in this life: a tentative campaigner, a ham-handed politician, an occasional opportunist. But give him a victim, give him a problem, give him the prospect of justice, and he's a very good guy to have on your side.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com. 