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After a months-long investigation, OSHA has cited and fined 11 firms in connection with the October 2019 partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans. The agency has proposed fines totaling $315,536, and all companies have 15 days to contest the monetary fines and citations. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the following firms have been cited by OSHA: Heaslip Engineering LLC drew the largest fine, $154,214, and the only willful citation among the group. Suncoast Projects LLC, dba Hub Steel, based in Groveland, Florida, had the second-highest total... View full entry
Family members of two of the four people killed in the April crane collapse site have filed wrongful death suits against companies involved in crane operations at the South Lake Union construction site.
Gusting winds knocked the crane over the afternoon of April 27, after workers prematurely removed pins holding 20-foot sections together, leading to a tragedy that state regulators called “totally avoidable.”
— The Seattle Times
The collapse in April killed two iron workers, Andrew Yoder, 31, and Travis Corbet, 33; Alan Justad, 71, a former city planning official; and Sarah Wong, a 19-year-old Seattle Pacific University student, The Seattle Times reports. The families have filed suites against Morrow Equipment... View full entry
The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) announced Thursday that it has cited and fined three contractors a total of $107,200 in relation to April's deadly tower crane collapse at a Google office project. in Seattle. The crash to the street below killed two workers and two people in cars. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the tragic event that occurred in April was due to the project "contractors and their workers [ignoring] the manufacturers instructions for dismantling the crane by removing almost all of the tower's pins and sleeves at the same time." It is reported that... View full entry
Seattle’s construction frenzy turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a tower crane working on a new Google campus fell like a thunderbolt from the roof of a South Lake Union building, smashing into six cars and killing four people. — The Seattle Times
"The four-building, 607,000-square-foot project will house a new Google Seattle campus, and also include about 150 new apartments," reports The Seattle Times about the tragic incident at a South Lake Union site at Fairview Avenue and Mercer Street. "Construction began in 2017 and is set to be... View full entry
In 2016, a Manhattan crane collapse in Tribeca killed one person, seriously injured two others and left another with minor injuries. Workers were trying to secure the crane against winds by lowering the boom when the crane collapsed to the ground. The accident was caused by a series of operator... View full entry
The wildly swinging booms of three cranes at under-construction residential buildings in South Florida bent and collapsed in Hurricane Irma’s heavy winds Sunday. [...]
The cranes are a symbol of the luxury real estate development that drives South Florida’s economy, attracting millions of dollars in foreign investment, even as home prices soar out of reach for locals. The construction industry has fought against stricter regulation of the towering cranes.
— Miami Herald
While the whole extent of destruction that Hurricane Irma caused throughout Florida, Georgia, and various islands of the northern Caribbean in the past few days is still not entirely clear, the strength of the storm can be adumbrated by the three construction cranes that collapsed in the greater... View full entry
As cranes have grown in height and girth, the controls to operate them have intensified in number and complexity...the crane units in use these days have libraries of intricate manuals, packed with details...some operators may not have time to fully understand or read completely. Same goes for the maintenance team. When something does go wrong with such large machines...the 'mess and carnage' gets magnified. — Popular Mechanics
Crane safety experts give their thoughts on the leading causes of crane collapses, and why safety regulation is more complex than it seems.Previous news about collapses:Crane collapses in Manhattan, one dead and two seriously injuredMore than 50 dead after crane collapses on Mecca's Grand Mosque... View full entry
The Associated Press reported that the person killed was a Wall Street worker sitting in a parked car. [...]
The accident happened as workers were trying to secure the crane against winds around 20 mph by lowering the boom, which had been extended to as long as 565 feet the day before, officials said. Because the crane was being lowered, workers were directing pedestrians away from it on a street that otherwise would likely have been teeming with people.
— npr.org
A couple of nearby construction workers took video of the collapse on a cellphone – you can watch that here. View full entry
