To some of the industry’s hardcore safety adherents, dwelling too much on what happens after an accident is almost blasphemy. With contractors claiming zero tolerance for safety risks and projects visibly promoting their number of "accident free" days, the idea of preparing for an accident seems to undermine that iron-clad commitment to safety. "I’d rather talk about prevention," was the reply we received to some of our questions about rescue preparedness. Yet jobsite accidents, injuries and deaths remain a fact of construction life, with annual U.S. fatality numbers stubbornly exceeding 1,000 since 1994. Omitting the issue of rescue training and
Not even dangling concrete slabs and the danger of another collapse could keep the firefighters from finding and digging out Jimmy Bigelow. At 29, he was the top apprentice who graduated in 2003 from a training program operated by ironworkers’ Local 350 in Atlantic City, N.J. Now he was buried in the pieces of a casino-resort garage bay that shattered on the clear morning of Oct. 30, 2003. To find him, firefighters, police and construction workers in the rescue team had to forget about tons of cracked slab and uncured concrete balancing over their heads. They had to keep their
New Jersey's Urban Search and Rescue team has a cool shorthand designation--Task Force 1. Its mission, trying to locate and save people in a disaster, requires guts and technical know-how. Created in 1997, the task force consists of specially trained and equipped firefighters, police, emergency medical personnel and engineers. They brought their German Shepherds and probing cameras and worked long hours in Manhattan after the World Trade Center attack of Sept. 11, 2001. But if there was any proof needed of the peril and precautions needed for its work, just check with engineer Bryan Juncosa. He is a Kinnelon, N.J.-based
Few things are worse than watching employees or co-workers stranded in places so high up that they can’t be helped within a few seconds. What’s the best way to be ready? By learning what to do before it happens and then acting quickly and calmly. Few people know how to get ready for rescues at high elevations better than Winton Wilcox, president of ComTrain, LLC, a Monroe, Wis.-based company that specializes in training for "high-angle" rescues, especially in communications towers that are as high as 2,000 ft. Many of the safety principles are the same no matter what the height.
One of the most bullish forecasts for next year’s construction market comes from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, which predicts that total construction in 2005 will increase 5.8% after this year’s extremely strong 9.2% increase. "Construction growth has been running ahead of that for the overall economy since 2001 and this year will break the trillion-dollar barrier for the first time," says Commerce economist Patrick MacAuley. Commerce believes that the housing market will maintain enough momentum from this year’s 14% increase to withstand the pressure of slightly higher interest rates and its forecast calls for the housing market to increase
The construction forecast from industry management consultant FMI Corp., Denver, predicts that the office building market will be one of the industry’s fastest growing sectors in 2005. FMI expects office building construction to jump 9.5% next year after increasing 7.1% in 2004. "Even acknowledging that vacancy rates will remain relatively high, we still see good opportunities in 2005 and 2006 for the nonresidential building market," says Randy Jiggard, FMI’s manager of market information. He sees total nonresidential building construction increasing 5.8% next year, a faster annual growth rate than that predicted for the single-family housing market. Along with office building
The Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill., predicts that the construction industry will shift gears in 2005, with public works and nonresidential building markets replacing the housing market as the industry’s main growth drivers. PCA’s forecast, which is adjusted for inflation, says that the result will be a 2.9% increase in the real value of total construction in 2005. This will be slightly less than this year’s 3.7% gain, after discounting for inflation. PCA predicts that the value of the single-family housing market will slip 0.5% in 2005 after jumping 15% in 2004. However, nonresidential construction is expected to bounce back
The National Association of Home Builders, Washington, D.C., predicts that higher interest rates will pull the housing market back from this year’s record level to that experienced in 2003. NAHB is looking for fixed mortgage rates to increase from 5.9% this year to 6.5% next year and then move up to 7.1% by 2006. Adjustable rate mortgages will rise from 3.9% to 5.2% and then 6.3% during the same period. "The housing market has been nothing short of phenomenal," says David Seiders, NAHB’s chief economist. But the nation’s housing market is in the process of "reaching its limits" and "topping
Dave Markey likes to approach jobsite security the same way he negotiates a big equipment purchase. In every sale, both sides play tug-of-war to shift the risk and they attempt to meet somewhere in the middle. Likewise, theft is a kind of cruel game between property owners and pilferers. "If we make it easy for thieves, then we are taking all the risk," Markey says. The 59-year-old vice president of American Infrastructure, Worcester, Pa., is in charge of a $130-million fleet of trucks, trailers, off-road machines, portable equipment and small tools. Markey doesn’t like to talk too much about the
(Photo by Monica N. Macezinskas, photo manipulation by Nancy Soulliard for ENR) As representatives of the "dismal science," construction economists are proving an optimistic lot this year, judging by a review of several industry forecasts for 2005. Cheered by this year’s robust growth rates, the strongest since the late 1990s, economists appear confident that 2005 will set a new record for overall construction volume. However, construction will reach this new height with a different market mix as nonresidential building and public works take over the role of growth driver from the homebuilding market. For one record year in 2004, almost
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