Toledo, Ohio, Crane Tragedy Halts Bridge Work; Safety Concerns Now Addressed.
Published in: The Blade
Date: 2/18/2004
By: Mike Wilkinson and David Patch
Feb. 18–Construction on highway spans along the southern approach to the new Maumee River Crossing bridge won’t continue until it can be assured the complicated process is safe, officials said yesterday.
A day after three men were killed and five were injured in the collapse of a 2-million-pound truss crane, officials said a twin, undamaged crane will remain idle. After the accident Monday, that truss was retracted into a more stable position.
“We need to find out what the cause of the accident was before we can resume work with the second truss,” Matti Jaekel, president and chief executive officer of Missouri-based Fru-Con Construction Corp., said at a news conference yesterday. “When we determine that the work is safe, we will resume the work.”
Mr. Jaekel would not speculate as to whether the delay would trigger layoffs. An estimated 120 ironworkers are employed at the site, as are dozens of other workers.
Work unrelated to the span construction was expected to resume today, he said.
The accident marred an otherwise solid safety record for the $220 million project, the largest, most expensive single project ever awarded by the Ohio Department of Transportation. The spans will carry I-280 over the Maumee River, replacing the Robert Craig Memorial Bridge, one of the only drawbridges remaining on the federal interstate system. The project area runs from I-75 in North Toledo to Navarre Avenue in Oregon.
A team of investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has begun to comb the wreckage in an effort to figure out how a 2-million-pound truss crane fell off concrete piers, turning a $3 million piece of sophisticated construction equipment into a pile of twisted steel.
I-280, which carries about 60,000 vehicles per day, remained closed in the area until further notice. Ohio Department of Transportation officials said the closing was primarily a safety precaution, and that it also would allow federal investigators unimpeded access to the site.
Meanwhile, Ironworkers Local 55, which lost three of its members in the tragedy, has hired its own investigative team to produce a separate report. Before work continues using the undamaged truss crane, Joe Blaze, business agent for the local, said the union will need assurances that the procedures are safe.
“We need definitive proof,” he said.
Jule Jones, area OSHA director, said her agency has six months to conduct its inquiry and complete its report but does not envision shutting the project down for that entire time.
“We’re not going to rush to judgment, but we’re mindful of the need to get this project moving again,” Ms. Jones said.
Other work on the site, which stretches from I-75 in North Toledo to Navarre Avenue in Oregon, will resume today, Mr. Jaekel said. All work was halted yesterday, he said, “in honor of the people” who were killed and injured.
He was not specific about what work that would involve, and he said it was too early to know if the suspension of crane-oriented work would result in layoffs at the site.
“We will try to get all the workers back to work [today],” Mr. Jaekel said.
State and federal officials said during the news conference that it was far too early to have answers about the accident’s cause. Instead, they asked that the community focus on the loss of three ironworkers and the five other injured workers still hospitalized.
“We shall not forget them, nor their families,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said. “May our highest respect for them offer a measure of comfort now.”
An ecumenical prayer service for those killed and injured in collapse will be held Sunday at 5 p.m. at nearby St. Stephen’s Church at Consaul and Genesee streets in East Toledo’s Birmingham neighborhood.
The city announced that it has lowered U.S. flags at Government Center and other city buildings to half-staff in honor of the victims.
Mayor Jack Ford said he talked to the families of the victims and pledged the city’s help as necessary. “We will stand as a community to help across the board,” he said.
Mr. Ford said the city will work with ODOT and OSHA to help them determine the cause of the collapse. “We will continue to meet to make sure there is a full accounting,” he said.
Because the project was moving along so quickly, and with so few accidents, many may have thought it was risk free. But Mr. Blaze said the ironworkers who were building the piers and positioning the bridge segments had to be aware of safety at all times.
“This is a very dangerous job,” he said.
The type of bridge construction used for the I-280 crossing was new to the area, but it had been used elsewhere. Mr. Blaze acknowledged that local ironworkers had some apprehension when the project started.
“You’re naturally going to be uncomfortable with it the very first time,” he said. He noted, however, that Fru-Con had an excellent safety record at the site since work began in March, 2002.
A hydraulic-boom crane tipped off last year as it was lifting a 58,000-pound, precast concrete form onto a pier. The operator injured a finger in that accident, which occurred about 200 yards south of Monday’s tragedy. All told, however, there were only five prior lost-time injuries during 1.3 million man-hours worked at the project before Monday.
The collapse occurred about 2:20 p.m. Monday, as the crane building the northbound lanes was being moved into position to start work on a new span. Officials said the investigation will focus on all potential causes.
Rich Martinko, ODOT’s assistant director for highway management, said the course of construction will depend on what investigators find.
The bridge had been scheduled for completion by Labor Day, 2005, but the loss of one of the twin cranes places that timetable in serious doubt.
After the news conference, ODOT Director Gordon Proctor said it might be possible to re-arrange the project’s construction sequence to concentrate on other tasks until crane-oriented work may resume.
“It may be possible that they can accelerate aspects of the project that don’t require the trusses,” Mr. Proctor said, likening the bridge to a house with many rooms. “Things don’t necessarily have to happen in sequence.”
The bridge, the biggest transportation project in Ohio history, was reported to be 61 percent complete as of Monday. But much of the remaining work involved lifting the pre-fabricated concrete structural segments into place and then securing them there with epoxy and steel cables. Under normal circumstances, each of the cranes has completed one bridge span per week, and 47 pairs of spans remained to be done when Monday’s accident occurred.
The fallen crane and its twin were custom-built in Italy for the project, and ODOT has estimated that fabrication, delivery, and assembly of a replacement could take a year. Deck construction could resume with just the remaining crane, but likely at a slower pace.
Part of the fallen crane’s debris pushed into the left lane of northbound I-280, but no freeway vehicles were struck. Any pavement damage is likely to be minor and simple to repair once an opportunity to do so arises, said Joe Rutherford, ODOT’s district spokesman.
But officials said they must be sure the piers and other components of the project site are safe before I-280 can reopen.
“The site is still unstable and dangerous,” Mr. Proctor said. “We can’t get OSHA in there without help from the engineers to make sure it’s safe. Within a few days, we should be able to start determining how to resume and to get I-280 open again.”
Before the new span ever opens, the bridge will need a name, a debate that has continued for years locally and in the Ohio legislature — which has final say.
In September 2001, a local task force coordinating public involvement in the bridge design process offered two “finalist” suggestions from a name-the-bridge canvass: Veterans Memorial Bridge or Glass City Skyway. A pending bill in the Ohio House of Representatives combines them as Glass City Veterans’ Memorial Skyway.
For the men who have built the bridge, however, the debate is now over, Mr. Blaze said.
“From this day forward, in the eyes of the ironworkers, it will be a memorial bridge.”
(c) 2004, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.