New York Construction Accident & Safety News

Yet another crane accident happened this week, killing a man in Smithville, Texas and severely injuring another. The crane was being used to work on a bridge over the Colorado River when it suddenly overturned causing the injuries.

The mobile crane was gripping a steel girder that was about to be removed from the bridge, Lt. Lonny Richardson of the Smithville Police Department said. A second girder came loose, falling on the other girder and causing the crane to overturn, he said.

The workers in the manlift were removing the fasteners that bound the beams together and were knocked out of the lift when the beams and crane fell, Richardson said He said the worker who was killed fell about 60 feet onto a stack of construction materials.

Since a construction accident in March left seven people dead in New York City, there have been more than twelve people killed in crane related accidents across the country.

Good news for construction workers in New York City who were worried over any further crane accidents came over the weekend from Newsday.com:

Authorities say surprise checks of nearly 50 construction cranes around New York City have uncovered no unlicensed operators.

City investigators randomly checked 47 cranes Friday. The Department of Investigation says all the rigs had properly licensed operators, but one crane had an expired permit. A partial stop-work order and a violation were issued.

The checks follow a spike in construction accidents throughout the city, where crane accidents have killed at least nine people since March.

Twenty DOI and Buildings Department staffers fanned out to construction sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.

DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn calls the operation "both a proactive safety measure and a strong deterrent message."

Following up on last week’s news that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was going to be signing new laws to protect construction workers in the city, details have emerged on exactly what they entail:

The first (Intro 763-A) classifies "housekeeping violations" — which can cover anything from loose materials to tripping hazards — as immediately hazardous. This designation would create stricter penalties for work sites that tend to be sloppy and require they be fixed promptly. Sites that do not comply with the legislation, which was sponsored by Councilmember Annabel Palma, could face a penalty of $5,000.

The council also approved legislation (Intro 687) requiring the annual inspection of structurally compromised buildings. Buildings recently involved in a fire or that have been threatened structurally by other means will have to be inspected by a professional engineer annually. Inspections must continue annually, according to the bill, until the building is found to be in sound condition.

In addition, the council approved legislation (Intro 793) requiring the more stringent inspection of retaining walls.

The new safety features are now in effect and should help reduce accidents on construction sites.

Disturbing news out of Nevada today as the LA Times does an expose on a run of recent construction accidents that have left 12 people dead in the past 16 months. Are casinos somehow exempt from the law when it comes to OSHA and construction accidents?

Investigators at the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded that the casino, owned by Boyd Gaming Corp., had "willfully" violated safety rules.

The company had a previous violation involving such confined spaces. And the investigators found evidence that in 2001 a worker fell sick after working in a grease trap and was cared for in a hotel room for several days before being sent to a hospital, according to state records.

But when the investigators tried to formally cite the company after the two men’s deaths, Boyd attorneys pressed two political appointees overseeing Nevada OSHA, Mendy Elliott and D. Roger Bremner, for a less severe finding. In a private settlement conference, Bremner, administrator of the Nevada Division of Industrial Relations, knocked the finding down to "serious" rather than "willful," according to state records. A willful finding could have exposed Boyd to civil suits, normallypreventedby workers compensation law.

"You don’t touch a casino in this state," said Don Barker, the former safety director of Boyd Gaming. "I got paid to make things go away. I might go into a conference facing a $25,000 fine and leave with a $1,500 fine. This situation would never happen in any other state. The program has no teeth."

Barker said he had asked for safety improvements at the Orleans before the accident but was blocked by management. Afterward, he quit in protest and now works as a safety official elsewhere in Las Vegas.

The Orleans accident was among the first in a streak of fatal accidents in Las Vegas buildings and construction sites that has taken a dozen lives in the last 16 months.

In case after case, the state has dropped or sharply reduced fines and penalties proposed by investigators, just as it did in the Orleans case. To some critics, the handling of the accidents has sent a message to the construction and gaming industries that they can disregard safety rules with near impunity.

Has the government in Nevada officially put a price tag on human life? Or said that gaming companies are above the law?

Yet another crane accident happened this week, this time in Oklahoma City killing a bystander. The crane, which was being used to fix a steeple to the top of a new church. An 80 year old man was watching the assembly from his car when the crane collapsed, crushing the car he was in.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the state Labor Department and the owner of the crane, Barnhart Crane and Rigging Co., were to investigate.

Jeff Latture, Barnhart senior vice president, said it had been years since the company had an accident.

"We do about 10,000 jobs a year without incident," he said. "We are very upset about this and certainly are concerned about families involved."

Latture said the cause of the accident will likely be a structural failure of the 90-ton crane, some kind of a problem with the ground it was sitting on, or operator error.

"It was at the beginning of a very simple lift, which is somewhat troubling to us and not far into the lift when the crane went over," he said.

Clay, the fire official, said he saw no obvious equipment failure or problems with the ground the crane was on. He said about 150 feet of the telescoping boom was deployed at the time of the accident.

Oklahoma is one of 35 states that does not require crane operators to hold a license.

InjuryBoard.com gives some really fantastic tips about how to prevent falls on the construction job site. According to OSHA, falls are the leading cause of construction accident fatalities with an average of 362 occurring each year. The article and it’s tips are worth a read, but I found this bit to be the most interesting:

In order to lessen such statistics, the Spanish-Language network Telemundo utilized an approach common to many popular sitcoms it’s incorporated the issue into the story line of one of its hit television series, Pecados Ajenos. The incorporation was not only an attempt to raise awareness of this safety issue, but also to disseminate relevant information and statistics to the two million Spanish-speaking construction workers who work in the United States (as well as to their friends and family) and to communicate the fact that such falls can be prevented.

Will the tactic work? We shall see.

In the wake of a deadly crane accident in Houston last week which killed four men, the Houston Chronicle profiles crane operators and how they achieve their operating status.  It is very demanding work including long hours and lengthy separations from families, but can also be very lucrative as well with some workers making up to $100,000 a year. With the job also comes the responsibility of being responsible for moving tons and tons worth of building materials which can come at a high cost. Already this year 13 people have been killed in construction crane related accidents, and estimates say that 22 people a year die in that fashion.

Rocky Strength, one of four workers killed in Friday’s accident, worked as a crane builder, a job that frequently took him away from home. His mother, Lisa Schneider, said she occasionally started cooking elaborate weekend meals at her Santa Fe home only to get telephone calls from her son announcing that he had abruptly departed for an out-of-state job. "Hey," she said, "give me a heads-up."

"Once he got into the job — it was a thrill-seeking job — he enjoyed it," she said. "A lot of people can’t do it. He was very proud of it."

Ballard said he occasionally worked out-of-state jobs three months at a time, an assignment length he considers typical of the industry. On those jobs, he typically would live with other workers in motels, or, sometimes, rent an apartment.

"The money is better," he said of those jobs. "They make a lot more money on the East and West coasts."

Such far-traveling workers are called "boomers," — a wry wordplay on stretching out a crane’s boom.

Booming union operators typically can work in any city they can find a job. Permission to do so generally is granted by the union local in question, Ballard said. "We’ve sent people to Kuwait," he said. "We even sent them to the Soviet Union. They had to live in a men’s camp, a work camp, because there wasn’t anything else around."

"We’re professionals. This is what we do for a living. We know these cranes inside out."

New York City council has passed several new laws to further increase safety measures at construction sites. From Newsday.com:

After a spike in construction accidents throughout New York City in recent months, the City Council has passed several measures intended to increase safety on building sites.

The package of bills passed Wednesday includes one that would allow buildings inspectors to classify maintenance violations as immediately hazardous. Those violations include problems such as loose material and debris, unsafe storage of combustible materials and falling hazards.

Another bill requires regular structural inspections on buildings that have been weakened by fire or other damaging elements.

A third bill requires better monitoring of retaining walls, mandating structural inspections every five years.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to sign the bills into law.

In New York City, construction crane accidents have killed at least nine people since March.

The largest crane in use by a construction site fell in Houston this past Friday, killing four workers and injuring another seven. It is the latest crane collapse to happen in a time where the country has been plagued with them in New York, Miami and Las Vegas.  In the last four months, nine workers have been killed by crane accidents in New York City alone, a larger number than the total fatalities in the previous decade. Why is this trend escalating?

An Associated Press analysis in June found that cities and states have wildly varying rules governing construction cranes, and some have no regulations at all, choosing instead to rely on federal guidelines dating back nearly 40 years that some experts say haven’t kept up with technological advances.

Is there any remedy or relief in sight?

OSHA standards require cranes to undergo annual inspections, but it is a self-policing mandate for crane owners. Federal law requires that inspection records be kept, but not submitted.

 

Since January, there have been 20 fatalities in New York City surrounding construction accidents. Now to combat the growing epidemic, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is stepping in to add twelve more inspectors to examine high rise construction sites, cranes, and other high risk areas for accidents.

"There is no one - among regulators, employers, employees, unions and trade associations - who will accept these lost lives as the byproduct of work in a dangerous industry," said Louis Ricca Jr., OSHA’s acting regional administrator in New York. "We must all commit to maintaining safety as the number one job priority each and every day."

Richard Mendelson, OSHA’s area director in Manhattan, added: "The number and frequency of construction-related deaths and accidents in the city, and their associated human cost, is unacceptable. We’re using every available resource and tool - enforcement, outreach, education, persuasion, even peer pressure - to better identify and proactively eliminate hazards, and to compel employers and employees to do likewise."

The new inspectors have been working since June 23.