New York Construction Accident & Safety News

Earlier today a construction worker was killed in New York City after falling over 40 stories to the ground. WNYC.org has a partial transcript of mayor Michael Bloomberg playing down the event:

BLOOMBERG: It is the first tragic accident fatality in construction since May. Keep in mind this is a dangerous industry and while the numbers vary dramatically year to year, 15 or 20 deaths a year is what you’d normally have in this industry.

According to the article. the site on which the worker died has 32 open construction codes violations.

Even though construction accidents lead to more deaths than any other profession, workers killed on the job was down in 2007, to “historic lows”. The AP reports on the statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The number of worker deaths dropped to 5,488 last year — the fewest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track in 1992. That’s down 6 percent from the 5,840 deaths reported in 2006.

Construction continued to have the most deaths of any private sector industry, with 1,178 in 2007.

The overall U.S. rate was 3.7 fatal injuries for every 100,000 workers, the lowest annual rate ever reported by the fatality census.

The construction industry has had several deadly crane accidents this year, including one in Houston this month that killed four workers and injured seven. Crane-related deaths have also occurred in New York, Miami and Las Vegas.

A developer in New York state with ties to Donald Trump is under scrutiny lately after several incidents at his building sites became a cause for concern. Several injuries have occurred at the various construction sites, including one fatality, and now work has been ordered to cease after the latest issue.

Mayor Dannel Malloy announced the new limits three days after a four-by-four piece of lumber fell from the 24th floor of the Trump Parc project during a storm Friday, smashing through the roof of a postal truck and narrowly missing its driver in what was at least the fourth accident at the site in several months. A week earlier, the city shut down work on the tower after a cable blew from an upper floor and shattered a window at a University of Connecticut building.
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"No concrete work, no HVAC, no plumbing, no drywall, nothing," Malloy said yesterday, describing the new constraints. He said officials are "upset and angered" by the latest accident and he dismissed the safety improvements Cappelli said he was taking on his own, including disassembling the construction crane and removing all concrete framing by Friday.

The blogger for Trolman, Glaser and Lichtman reported on a letter issued by nine U.S. senators to create reform in construction laws.  With frequent crane accidents in the last six months or so, reform couldn’t come a moment sooner.

With the outbreak of construction accident fatalities all across America, nine senators have lead the charge towards reform. The senators, which include Patty Murray of Washington, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Barack Obama of Illinois, sent a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao asking her to make initiatives to improve worker safety on construction sites. Also included in the requests was improved crane regulations which haven’t been revised since 1971. The steps taken by the senators is in part due to the perceived lack of action by the current administration to make changes to the regulations on the books.

Hopefully any reform that is coming will help prevent more construction accidents from happening.

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.

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."