Transportation
Four Workers Dead in Crane Collapses
(enr.construction.com - 02/23/04 issue)
By Aileen
Cho
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COLLAPSE Launching truss had placed
many segments before its mysterious collapse Feb. 16.
(Photo by AP Wideworld)
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Investigations are just now being launched
into the causes of two unrelated fatal crane accidents at
bridge sites that occurred within 24 hours of each other.
Three workers were killed and five injured in Toledo on Feb.
16 and there is one confirmed fatality in Stratford, Conn.,
at ENR press time on Feb. 17.
The accident in Toledo occurred about
2:30 p.m. at the site of the $220- million Maumee River Bridge,
a precast segmental cable-stayed structure with a 1,225-ft
main span. As crews from St. Louis-based Fru-Con Construction
Corp. were repositioning a 2-million-lb, 315-ft launching
truss to prepare for another segment placement, the truss
collapsed. Killed were ironworkers Robert Lipinski Jr., 44,
of Grand Rapids, Ohio; Mike Moreau, 30, of Lambertville, and
Mike Phillips, 42, of South Toledo. All were members of ironworkers';
union Local 55. Five other workers were injured, two seriously.
The truss, which was not carrying a segment, fell partly onto
Interstate 280, but no motorists were injured, says Joe Rutherford,
Ohio Dept. of Transportation spokesman. It is unclear how
many workers were on site, but Fru-Con generally has more
than 300 workers on the project, he says.
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I -280 will remain closed indefinitely,
"until we can ensure the safety of the investigation
of the workers in the area, the investigators themselves and
the motorists," Rutherford says. The county coroner,
Toledo police, U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
and Fru- Con all are conducting investigations. "There's
been preliminary contact with the police department,"
says Rutherford.
OSHA, Fru-Con and ODOT had a partnering
agreement for safety on the job, a state first. Until the
accident, Fru-Con had worked 1 million man hours between March
2002 and Dec. 31, 2003, with just five lost-time injuries—400%
better than the national average.
The $3-million truss was one of two
custom-built by Italian manufacturer Paolo de Nicola. It normally
takes the pair of trusses one week to complete each 150-ft
span. They had completed 11 of 30 spans late last week, say
Fru-Con sources. The crane lifts the sections of roadway into
place. Once a span of roadway is completed, the crane's back
end and middle legs are advanced inchworm-like to the next
pier. Each span weighs between 75 to 100 tons, says Rutherford.
The new bridge will rise 130 ft above the existing route carrying
1-280.
Fru-Con had been on track to finish
the job 14 months ahead of the scheduled completion date of
mid-2006 with a $5-million value-engineering bonus, says Rutherford.
The impact on the schedule now is not yet known, but four
bridge piers and two segments were damaged. OSHA has six months
to report its findings, though it will not likely take that
long, says Rutherford.
The bridge is the largest public works
project in Ohio. Designed by Figg Engineering Group, Tallahassee,
it will have a unique cradle system for its single plane of
cables attached to a 404-ft-tall pylon, featuring 200-ft panels
of glass.
Less than 24 hours later, at a $96-million
bridge replacement job in Stratford, Conn., two barge-mounted
cranes collapsed, killing the crane operator, says Connecticut
Dept. of Transportation spokesman Paul Breen. "One is
in the river and the other's boom flipped backwards and impacted
the western shore," he says. The cranes were lifting
out a girder of the 1,800-ft-long, four-lane steel-grated
Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, which has been replaced by a new
bridge opened last year over the Housatonic River. Apparently
the boom of one crane snapped, causing the collapse.
Balfour Beatty Construction Inc., Atlanta,
won the contract for the job in 2001. It was due to be completed
in 2005 under an extended schedule. At ENR press time on Feb.
17, the state fire marshal who handles crane accidents, the
state police and OSHA were all still on the accident scene,
but all lanes of State Route 15 had been reopened to traffic,
says Breen.
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