The March 2021 collapse of an I-295 south retaining wall that supported a new roadway was foreshadowed by two events in 2016 and February 2019, according to a forensic engineering report commissioned by the state DOT to find the cause of the wall’s failure. Preliminary DOT findings blamed excess groundwater on the site that was exacerbated by a March 24 rain storm, conditions which the report confirmed with several photos of ground water “weeping” through soil at the wall construction site, and a pool of ground water photographed during deconstruction of the collapsed wall by investigators. Th…