Two men fell 75 to 80 ft. to their deaths Friday, June 12, when a rebar cage they were attaching gave way on a New Orleans-area bridge widening project, ENR has learned. Photo: Courtesy Louisiana TIMED Program The Huey P. Long Bridge Widening project, where two workers fell to their deaths June 12. Related Links: ENR’s Prior Huey P. Long Bridge Stories Louisiana’s Huey P. Long Bridge Widening The Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development has ordered joint venture Kiewit/Massman/Traylor Construction to cease all related steel and iron work on the $434 million, Phase IV of the Huey P. Long
By the end of June, three U.S. cities plan to begin tracking tower cranes working on construction sites, and public officials there hope to expand the list to improve safety on a national level. “Sharing this information can save lives,” says Robert LiMandri, commissioner of New York City’s Dept. of Buildings, which has volunteered to maintain a list of cranes operating in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. All have agreed to share data. “If there is an issue with a particular tower crane, model, make or practice that is going on, we want to know about it,” adds Tony
The contractor in the December 2007 collapse of a Jacksonville, Fla., parking garage during construction is claiming exoneration by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for responsibility in the catastrophe. A laborer died, and 23 other workers were injured. But OSHA insists that the case remains open, despite the agency’s formal settlement with the contractor. Photo: Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Dept. Garage-collapse case still open. In June 2008, OSHA concluded its investigation into the collapse of the Berkman Plaza II parking structure and proposed penalties totaling $192,800 against Choate Construction Co., Atlanta, the general contractor; Southern Pan Services, Lithonia, Ga.,
One week after an 11th-floor scaffold collapsed on June 10 at a 21-story apartment construction project in Austin, Texas, killing three workers, local contractor Andres Construction Services has resumed work on the $40-million structure with “some limitations for the exterior,” says a spokesperson for the owner. It eventually will house students and faculty from the nearby University of Texas campus. Four men were working on a scaffold between the building’s 11th and 13th floors when part of it collapsed, says Harry Evans, an Austin Fire Dept battalion chief. Two men fell about 100 ft to the ground and were pronounced
The scaffolding accident that killed three workers on an Austin high-rise apartment building has underscored what some local researchers and safety advocates believe are safety problems in the city’s construction sector. One week after an 11th floor scaffolding collapsed June 10 at a 21-story apartment tower, killing three workers, contractor Andres Construction, has resumed work on the $40-million structure, says the owner of the building. It is set to house students and faculty at the nearby University of Texas campus. Four men were working on a scaffold between the building�s 11th and 13th floors when part of it collapsed, says
For every construction accident, safety experts say, as many as 100 near- misses occur. A quick response this year at the Blue Cross-Blue Shield building in Chicago is an example of one such accident averted. On Jan. 21, crews were building a $270-million vertical “extension,” adding 24 floors onto the existing, occupied 33-story building. An operator was swinging a Potain MR605B luffing jib to make a pick. That’s when workers heard a loud “pop” and got concerned, according to a source involved with the project, who asked not to be named. Rather than pushing on, the operator “dogged” off the
On June 3, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) signed into law a bill requiring construction workers to undergo mandatory 10-hour Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety training within 15 days of hire; supervisors must undergo 30 hours of OSHA training. The measure was enacted one year after Perini Building Co., a unit of Tutor Perini Corp., Framingham, Mass., and the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council agreed to end a 24-hour strike that erupted over six jobsite deaths within 18 months at the $8.6-billion CityCenter development on the Las Vegas Strip. The law becomes effective on Jan. 1, 2010.
Stop mixing messages. That is what a team of safety researchers urged Perini Building Co. to do during worker orientations last fall following an assessment of the CityCenter project and another Perini project nearby. The mixed-message advice was one of the most interesting aspects of the assessment. Although Perini seemed on the surface to have the best safety communication practices, the assessment team claimed that the message was compromised. Photo: Tony Illia Bilingual instruction at CityCenter’s safety orientation lasted only 15 minutes. Related Links: Las Vegas CityCenter Project: Inside a Safety Turnaround Perini’s direct messages seemed to reflect an enlightened
A severe thunderstorm north of Dallas caused the collapse on May 2 of a practice facility used by the Dallas Cowboys professional football team, which seriously injured three of the 70 people in the facility at the time. Summit Structures, Allentown, Pa., manufactured the 80-ft-tall pre-engineered, steel-framed, fabric-covered membrane building, which it erected in 2003 and upgraded in 2008. The National Weather Service determined the maximum winds near the ground were 70 mph at the time of the collapse. Photo: AP/Wideworld
My first workday at CityCenter—the Las Vegas Strip’s $8.6-billion mixed-use development, the country’s largest privately financed project—started last fall at the pitch- black hour of 6:30 a.m. I was nervous about my decision to shadow new construction hires during their safety training. Six workers had died on the project since 2007, sparking pickets and pressure that led to mandatory safety training. In the back of my mind was the fact that my brother-in-law, Darin, had suffered a near-fatal construction accident about a year earlier at another project and had returned to work at CityCenter. Now, months after my first day
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