The American Crane Collapse Crisis
On July 30, 2008, while an old bridge was being torn down over the Colorado River in Smithville, Texas (near Austin) a construction crane became overloaded with steel beams and toppled over. The crane then smashed into a manlift basket holding two workers. It killed 47-year-old James Michael Miles of North Richland Hills, Texas, and injured the other worker. Mr. Miles fell approximately 60 feet from the top of the bridge, landed on construction equipment and died.
This is only one of several crane accidents in the last few months. On July 18, 2008 at a Houston, Texas oil refinery, four workers died and seven others were injured in one of the nation’s largest mobile crane crashes. This crane was massive – a whopping 30 stories tall, and capable of lifting one million pounds. This monster fell on top of a smaller crane on the grounds of the LyondellBasell refinery where workers were gathered.
On May 30, 2008, at an Upper East Side construction site in New York City, a crane collapsed, killing two workers and wreaking devastating damage to numerous high-rise apartments. This was the second New York crane collapse in two months, leaving citizens wondering when officials were going to do something about these death machines. On March 15, 2008, a giant crane at a high-rise construction site in Manhattan collapsed across a city block, smashing into an apartment building, breaking into sections, crushing a town house and destroying a tenement façade. Four people were killed and over a dozen were injured. Authorities called this tragedy one of the city’s worst accidents, with damage running into millions of dollars. Residents surrounding the site said they’d been worried for months about a collapse as the crane continued to escalate each week, reaching higher and higher to work on numerous floors of the new high-rise building.
Other horrendous crane accidents have been reported this year, including in Las Vegas and Miami. In June, 2008, the Associated Press performed an analysis, finding that U.S. cities and states have varying rules and regulations on cranes, with some having no regulations whatsoever. Rather, many cities and states rely on federal guidelines almost 40 years old, which experts say are outdated due to technological advances.
Texas led the nation in crane accidents, with 26 fatalities between 2005 and 2006. Not surprisingly, cranes in Texas operate under the outdated federal guidelines, with no state or government regulations. Operating a crane is one of the most highly specialized skills in the construction industry. In Dallas alone earlier this year, officials discovered that 8 of 23 cranes across the city were being operated by uncertified crane workers. But Texas is only one of 35 states that don’t require crane operators to be licensed. Conversely, California employs the most stringent regulations of any state in the country, and as a result, hasn’t had a single fatality from a crane accident since a 1989 crane collapse in San Francisco.
The good news is that crane safety is now under scrutiny by the U.S. government. According to a June 24, 2008 article in USA Today, New York City’s Building Commissioner, Robert LiMandri, testified before a House Education and Labor Committee hearing that examined whether there are adequate safeguards in place for cranes at high-rise construction sites. Mr. LiMandri stated that “the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration needs more manpower to help keep construction sites safe,” and urged lawmakers to provide extra money for more federal inspectors. On a national basis, four construction workers are killed every day in the United States in construction site accidents.
Crane standards implemented by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is a division of the Labor Department, have not been updated since 1971, and require that cranes be inspected once a year. However, these inspections rarely occur. OSHA inspected approximately 23,000 of the nation’s 4 million+ construction sites in 2007.
Sharon Worth, Labor Department spokeswoman said that updating these regulations “is a top regulatory priority” for the agency. However, initiating new safety policies could take over a year after the Labor Department’s review of proposed regulations. Without new regulations, industry experts predict that deadly crane accidents will continue. As with every safety issue in this country, the question becomes, “How many innocent people have to die before the government takes action?” Your guess is as good as mine.
For more information on crane collapses and proposed regulations, please read the following articles:
Smithville crane collapse kills 1
Machinery hits manlift basket, injures 2nd worker
Associated Press
July 30, 2008, 11:48PMSMITHVILLE — A crane removing steel beams while dismantling an old bridge over the Colorado River became overloaded and toppled Wednesday, killing one worker and injuring another, officials said.
The crane smashed into a manlift basket where the two men were working, knocking one off and killing him, said Smithville police Lt. Lonny Richardson. The man fell about 60 feet from the top of the old bridge and landed on construction equipment, likely dying instantly, Richardson said.
"It was a horrible thing," he said.
The workers were trying to loosen the joints of a beam, or girder, when another beam also became loose and caused the crane to topple, said Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Marcus Cooper.
"The momentum of the girder overloaded the crane and the crane fell over," said Cooper. Richardson added, "This happened as a chain reaction."
The base of the crane, which was on the riverbed on what appeared to be a manmade base of gravel, tumbled over and ended up partially in the water.
The condition of the injured worker at University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin wasn't available. The identities of the two men weren't immediately released. Both were in their 40s and were from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Richardson said.
The operator of the crane managed to get out of the way "when things started going bad" and wasn't injured, Richardson said. The two men in the lift basket had on their safety belts, and the injured worker remained tethered to the basket with his belt after the accident, he said.
The Smithville Police Department dispatcher got a call about the accident at 10:16 a.m.
The crane was performing routine work to remove the old Loop 230 bridge in Bastrop County, Cooper said. The original bridge has been removed piece by piece, and what's remaining of it sits near the new bridge that replaced it.
Capital Excavation of Austin, the primary contractor for the project, didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. The employees both worked for Stomper Demolition in Euless, but the company didn't own the crane, general manager Ray Tupper said.
There have been several deadly crane accidents around the country this year, including one in Houston this month that killed four workers at the LyondellBasell refinery.
Crane Collapses: Coincidental or Criminal?
FoxNews.com
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Donald Leo was supposed to be waiting at the end of the aisle for his fiancée on their wedding day, June 21. He was supposed to have the jittery butterflies that most grooms get on their wedding day. But Donald won't be making it to the church after all - he was killed on May 30, along with another man. Why… because of a crane collapse in New York City.On Donald's last day he was operating a crane that collapsed. The crane's arm (used to hoist materials) snapped off its turntable, the platter-like platform that holds the cab for the operator. The cab and the arm flopped to one side and then went into freefall causing it to slam into a 23-story building.
If you're feeling a little déjà vu, you're correct because the same thing happened in New York City on March 15, when an entire crane collapsed and killed seven people. So far this year, 15 people have died in construction-related accidents in NYC, compared to 12 in all in 2007. These are very serious incidences that have prompted the question of whether crane regulations are just not strict enough.
The Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg said an “unacceptably high number” of fatalities demanded an “unprecedented” level of reform. Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council have unveiled a 13-point legislative package to broaden oversight of building sites, increase fines for violations, and register all key contractors.
Investigators believe that the turntable that snapped off in the May disaster had been cracked and repaired last year. Now city investigators and prosecutors are asking whether the Buildings Department officials properly monitored the journey of that turntable after it was damaged. The acting chief inspector for the unit was arrested and charged with taking bribes to approve cranes under his review, and with taking money from a crane company that sought to ensure that its employees would pass the licensing exam. The inspector could face up to seven years in prison if convicted. After the March collapse, a crane inspector was arrested and charged with faking a report that he had visited a construction crane at that site on March 4. The inspector, the authorities said, never visited the crane.
“Buildings Department statistics have shown that the number of crane inspectors has barely changed since the 1980s, even as the city has experienced a historic building boom.” Today, the cranes division has just four inspectors, although the agency recently hired a private firm to assist in inspections. And Mayor Bloomberg suggested that New York may have to bolster its inspection process to better police the city's tower cranes: “It may be that we don't have all of the checks and balances that we should have, and that's why we're trying to gather information.”
The Federal Government has certain requirements when it comes to crane operators and inspectors that all states must abide by, such as a thorough inspection by a competent person annually of the crane. Some states have stepped up to ensure more rigorous operator and inspector requirements. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) encourage states to develop and operate their own job safety and health programs. There are 24 states that have OSHA-approved State Plans and have adopted their own standards and enforcement policies. For the most part, the adopted standards are identical to Federal OSHA. However, some states have adopted additional standards. The National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO), a non-profit organization that develops standards for safe crane operation, created an accreditation program through written and practical tests for crane operators. The adoption of this accreditation program is optional for states, and only 15 states along with six cities have adopted it, New York being one of them.
New York is not the only state with cranes collapsing. On June 9, in Miami, the arm portion of a crane, being used to build a condominium complex, swung down and seriously injured a worker. A father and son team were lengthening the crane when it gave way. The father was injured - miraculously, the son was not physically hurt. This happened only months after a fatal crane accident where a collapse killed two workers in Miami. Some cities are trying to take steps to control this unnerving trend. Miami and Dade County have created ordinances to strengthen oversight of crane operators, but last month a Federal Court ordered a temporary halt to the enforcement of the ordinances.
In other states, the regulations seem to be working. California has gone 19 years without a single fatality from a crane accident. After a terrible crane collapse in San Francisco in 1989, California adopted the toughest regulations of the entire country. Some contribute California's amazing record to two aspects - the use of third party inspectors, and the need for an inspector or manufacture's representative to be present whenever a crane is being raised or lowered. The need for independent inspectors has been heightened, especially with the recent arrest of the Acting Chief Inspector for Cranes and Derricks in New York for accepting bribes. And California has shown us that stricter regulations would not hurt the industry.
Bottom-line: It's not a good idea to let crane companies regulate themselves. They are far from being able to be objective. State, county, or even the federal government should be creating stricter regulations. It's time to stop arguing over who should regulate, and it's time to create a solution - before more people are hurt, or worse.
Spotty Rules Govern Crane Industry
35 States Don't Require Operators To Be Licensed, Rules Vary Wildly From City To City And State To State
CBSNews.com
Wednesday, July 9, 2008(AP) Dan Mooney has no idea what it will take for his construction cranes to pass inspection.
The crane company owner recently asked New York City officials for a list of safety hazards that inspectors look for. He was told that information wasn't public.
"How am I supposed to know what I need if you won't tell me?" Mooney asked. "It's like not posting the speed limit."
In 35 other states, crane companies face a different problem: Operators don't need licenses of any kind.
An Associated Press analysis 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.
Crane safety is getting extra scrutiny following an alarming number of crane-related deaths in recent months in places such as New York, Miami and Las Vegas. In New York City, two crane accidents since March have killed nine people - a greater number than the total deaths from cranes over the past decade.
Many states have no count of their cranes, nor do they mandate training for workers who run the equipment, or for officials who certify crane operators. Even the federal government acknowledged last month that updated standards would prevent some crane accidents.
New York City has only four inspectors on the payroll to inspect more than 200 cranes, 26 of them large tower cranes. About four inspections are conducted each day, a routine that one 40-year industry veteran said won't detect real problems such as the rebuilt crane part blamed for a crane collapse last month.
"That's impossible," said Ron Brodek, an inspector from Chandler, Ariz. "You're just looking through the paperwork then. It's a drive-by inspection."
The crane standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were last updated in 1971. They require cranes to be inspected once a year. But most of the inspections never happen. OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, inspected only about 23,000 of the country's some 4 million construction sites last year.
Labor Department spokeswoman Sharon Worthy said she didn't know how many of those sites had cranes, but the federal government last year issued $500,000 in annual penalties for crane violations.
Updating the regulations, Worthy said, "is a top regulatory priority" for the agency. But approving the rules could still take more than a year after the Labor Department finishes an internal review of the proposed new regulations.
Running a crane is among the most highly specialized skills in construction. Operators of tower cranes, like the two that collapsed into Manhattan residential neighborhoods, cannot see the loads they're picking up and must use a radio to communicate with workers on the ground.
One wrong move can bring tragic consequences. In March, two construction workers in Florida were killed when a crane plummeted 30 stories onto a condo project, damaging the home used in the movie "There's Something about Mary." More than 50 people have died in crane accidents in Florida over the past decade.
"There's certification for your plumbers, your pipe fitters," said John Lindsey, a crane operator and treasurer of his union local in Jefferson City, Mo. "Why in the heck won't they hear about certification for your operators?"
Bruce Whitten, chairman of the Florida Crane Owners Council, bemoaned the state's lack of licensing requirements for crane operators.
"Anyone can operate a crane," he said. "I can take you over there and you can go operate a crane."
But Whitten was among industry leaders who sued to block Miami-Dade County crane ordinances enacted last spring that would have required that operators be licensed and that cranes withstand wind speeds of 140 mph. The lawsuit said none of the 200 cranes operating in the county could meet the standard.
Florida lawmakers introduced a bill that reduced the wind speed limit to 120 mph and required a national operator's test, but Miami-Dade legislators blocked it, saying it would weaken local standards.
After the March 15 crane collapse in Manhattan that killed seven people, Dallas checked its 23 cranes and found that eight had uncertified operators at the controls.
In states that only go by OSHA standards, annual crane inspections are largely a matter of self-policing by crane owners. Federal law requires that inspection records be kept, but not submitted. Some owners cut corners and avoid the inspections.
"There are people who don't do it because they know their machinery will not pass code," said John Alexander, an inspector for Cranetex Services in Austin, Texas. "There are people who will give the excuse that they can't afford it."
Even if regular inspections were conducted, the federal standards have not evolved to address equipment that is twice the size of cranes used in the 1970s and uses computers, Alexander said.
California, with some of the toughest crane regulations in the nation, has required independent inspections of equipment for decades.
After an 1989 tower crane accident killed five people in San Francisco, the state began requiring twice-a-year inspections and mandating that operators submit drawings of the crane's placement before receiving a permit. Since then, no one has died in a tower crane accident, said Roy Berg, a regional manager with the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
Third-party inspections are also required in Nevada, and crane contractors are responsible for maintenance and daily inspections. Before May 31, when a worker was crushed by a moving crane at a Las Vegas Strip megaresort under construction, the state hadn't had a crane accident in 14 years.
Independent inspections are being considered in New York City, but they were not among more than a dozen construction safety rules proposed last week. The city did propose training for crews who assemble cranes. Some of them were killed March 15 while trying to extend a crane in Manhattan. Investigators have focused on a broken nylon strap that held the steel and the way the workers were installing it.
The city's Department of Buildings couldn't say what is covered in a normal inspection, saying release of that information would interfere with criminal investigations under way into the latest crane collapse.
The confusing regulations sometimes contribute to other problems: On Friday, an assistant chief crane inspector was charged with falsifying inspection reports and tampering with exams, although the charges weren't related to the latest collapse.
That reduced the city's number of crane inspectors on the payroll from five to four, although the city says it's getting other help from other buildings inspectors until more crane inspectors are hired.
In April, New York's inspector general also found that a state employee approved crane operator licenses for more than 200 people who had failed a state licensing exam.
Without updated standards that are enforced equally around the country, industry experts fear that deadly accidents will continue.
"Now that cranes have really come into play in the mind's eye with all of these accidents, maybe we'll get somewhere," said Lindsey, the Missouri crane operator. "We've got a lot of lives in our hands when swinging one of those things around."
©2008 Angel Reyes
www.ReyesLaw.com
