New York Construction Accident & Safety News

The Buildings Department in New York City has been undertaking quite an overhaul after two major construction accidents involving crane collapses. Now the new buildings commissioner, Robert LiMandri, has begun to lay out his plan for sweeping reforms.

On Tuesday, at the annual Build Safe New York conference, Mr. LiMandri announced a 41-point plan to overhaul how “high-rise construction” is regulated and carried out in New York City. The changes result from a $4 million High-Risk Construction Oversight review of crane, hoist, excavation and concrete operations, begun last year, which involved 30 engineering experts from CTL Engineering and Construction Technology Consultants.

The review included visits to nearly 600 job sites; 12 outreach meetings with more than 95 organizations; and Buildings Department safety conferences with crane manufacturers and building officials from cities around the world.

“This groundbreaking study is the type of critical evaluation that is necessary to ensure a new standard of safety is implemented across the city, one that the public demands and deserves,” Mr. LiMandri said in a statement. “The city’s economy depends on construction, and New Yorkers are depending on us to make that construction safe. After an exhaustive review of high-risk construction, we identified 41 specific ways that will help prevent accidents and raise accountability across the board.”

The city of New York is putting in more strict guidelines for construction work in the city, and it seems to be resulting in a more vigilant Buildings Commission. Newsday.com reports on the new rules and the early results:

In June, the Council and Bloomberg laid out a 15-point legislative package for stricter enforcement and regulations for crane operations and to improve overall safety at construction sites citywide.

The package led to a series of requirements, including mandatory safety training for tower crane workers, requiring mandatory submission of detailed rigging plans and banning the use of nylon slings to secure tower cranes. Nylon slings were cited as a cause in one of the crane collapses.

Buildings Department Commissioner Robert LiMandri said yesterday that since the March 15 collapse, his department issued more than 400 stop-work orders in 2008, or more than double the previous year. The city in May also added $5.3 million to the Buildings Department budget to fund dozens of new positions for oversight and enforcing construction safety requirements.

OSHA is investigating the trench collapse at a construction site in Clifton Park, New York where one worker was killed. The construction accident has lawyers from Trolman, Glaser and Lichtman talking about the value of safety regulations on the job site.

I agree with Edward Jerome, the area’s director of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that there are specific regulations regarding "sloping and shoring a trench to prevent collapses." The rules are there, they must be followed. Furthermore, it demonstrates a failure to adhere to the mandates of the labor law of the state of New York.

With the outbreak of crane construction accidents in New York City recently, it is only fitting that a conference for crane safety experts should be held there. Topics at the conference are set to include national safety standards for crane operators.

Nine people — including two Staten Islanders — died in two crane collapses earlier this year in Manhattan; others have died in crane accidents in Florida, Texas and Las Vegas.

The city and industry officials are talking about new proposed federal crane regulations, including a national testing system for crane operators, and whether a national system can be created to track crane parts.

Some sobering news from AMNY.com regarding safety at construction sites:

The federal government says that fall hazards are the biggest safety problem at New York City construction sites after random inspections last summer.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued $247,400 in fines after inspecting 46 sites last June and July.

The inspectors cited 60 contractors with 129 violations. Nearly a third of the violations involved fall hazards. The contractors were also cited for electrical safety, problems with scaffolds, cranes and improper welding.

OSHA’s Manhattan area director, Richard Mendelson, says the agency will use the information to decide where it should target its federal inspections in the future.

With all of the negative press swirling around the crane industry after several very profile crane accidents, including two in New York City, the industry is fighting back. Citing non stop changes to the law, those within the industry would like to see more uniform law to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Jim Robertson, managing partner of General Crane USA and a member of the Florida Public Task Force on Workplace Safety told the group that the industry is vulnerable to the politics of knee jerk reactions driven by gory headlines.

The result in his home state of Florida was a push by 67 local counties to draft and try and pass regulations around cranes — and each one was different, resulting in a nightmare of compliance.

Robertson led the push to block Dade County’s legislation after discovering some of the standards set were unachievable and in some cases made crane-lift situations more dangerous.

The result of a long struggle is an emerging national certification program, says Robertson, which will make it easier for operators to comply and understand what is expected of them.

The outbreak of construction accidents across New York City has not only been troubling for many, but very difficult to keep up with as well. Online real estate magazine The Real Deal has a fantastic roundup of the year’s construction accident news, including what the city of New York is doing to ensure that everything that can be done to prevent the accidents are.

Immediately following the disastrous week in late May when a crane collapsed on East 91st Street, killing two people, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Robert LiMandri, acting buildings commissioner, announced proposals aimed at preventing future fatalities.

On June 4, the DOB said it would add an additional 56 inspectors to the department, bringing the total number of buildings inspectors to 461 from 277 in January of 2002.

Bloomberg, who attributed many of the deaths to "tragically reckless behavior," proposed new legislation allowing the department greater oversight and enforcement.

"The bills will provide the department with the necessary powers to ensure that contractors are held accountable for their work," LiMandri said. "Buildings inspectors cannot be on every job site at every moment of the day, and so we must work together to create strong incentives for contractors to make safety their No. 1 priority."

If those laws are enacted, the DOB will take a more active role in determining management style and workforce qualifications on construction sites, aspects of building now largely left up to the individual contractor.

The master rigger  supervising the construction site where a worker fell over 40 stories to his death had their license suspended by the city of New York, cited for having unsafe conditions. The man in question, Gene Altobelli, will be charged with “negligence and incompetence” in regards to the construction accident.

Investigators determined that the worker’s safety harness was not secured and that a safety railing was missing from the platform where he was working, according to a statement from the Department of Buildings and the Department of Investigation.

Mr. Altobelli told investigators that he was not on the crane when the accident occurred about 9:30 a.m., but was taking a break in a street-level shed on the construction site, according to administrative charges that were filed against him on Friday in conjunction with the license suspension.

Great news last week from Newsday.com regarding building and construction reform in New York City:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is promoting his acting buildings commissioner to take the job permanently.

Bloomberg announced on his Friday radio show that he will appoint Robert LiMandri as commissioner. LiMandri was a deputy commissioner under Patricia Lancaster, who resigned under pressure in April during a spate of deadly construction accidents.

The mayor promoted LiMandri a day after the City Council changed the requirements for the job. The commissioner no longer needs to be licensed as an engineer or architect.

The mayor says LiMandri "is really the right guy for the right time."

Great news today courtesy of NY1.com:

Following a series of deadly accidents amid the city’s construction boom, the City Council is again taking up the issue of construction safety today. The council is scheduled to vote on legislation mandating that a site safety manager be present during concrete pouring operations, and that workers take safety courses. They’ll also take up a bill that will change the requirements for becoming the city’s Buildings Commissioner. Under the current law, the position must be held by a certified architect or engineer.