Posted:
January 29, 2008
Editor’s note: This story by Kevin Fagan, Jill Tucker and Jaxon Van Derbeken appeared Jan. 29 in the San Francisco Chronicle.
One worker was killed and two others were badly injured
Monday (Jan. 28) when a five-story tower at a decommissioned power plant in San
Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood collapsed during demolition and pinned
them beneath tons of steel, authorities said.
The workers were tearing down a rusted, hulking structure
known as a boiler at the southeast corner of the former Pacific Gas and
Electric Co. plant at 1100 Evans Ave. when the accident occurred just before
noon, authorities said.
Workers were preparing to pull the boiler down with
cables when it suddenly collapsed, Fire Department spokeswoman Lt. Mindy
Talmadge said.
Witnesses said they heard a loud metallic groan as the
top of the structure of crisscrossing metal beams pancaked onto a middle floor
- and then, with a loud boom, the upper floors keeled over and trapped the men
in a pile of splayed beams and debris.
More than a dozen emergency vehicles surrounded the scene
as firefighters attacked the metal heap with blowtorches, a huge crane and
electric saws to recover the workers.
All the victims were men, but no other information about
them was immediately available. The dead worker's body was removed from the
rubble at 9 p.m. and his name was being withheld.
One of the survivors was crawling out of the wreckage
when firefighters arrived, said Fire Department Lt. Ken Smith. He was taken to
San Francisco General Hospital with potentially life-threatening injuries to
his legs.
The second survivor was trapped in a "cage of
steel," Smith said, and it took emergency crews an hour to cut him loose.
He was also taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries to his legs.
As he was wheeled into the emergency room, he screamed,
"My legs, my legs!" witnesses said.
Kathy Parker of Los Gatos was bird-watching in a park
about 100 yards from the plant when, before her startled eyes, the boiler began
to collapse.
"It looked like one of those movies where some
building implodes, like an old hotel or something," she said. "It
made this big, crunching, groaning noise, and then all of a sudden it just
started falling. There was a big crash, then dust everywhere and workmen
running all over the place."
The power plant - long a sore subject for local
residents, who complained of noise and air pollution - operated for 76 years
before shutting in May 2006. Demolition began soon afterward.
At least 20 other workers were on site when the accident
occurred. All remaining crew members were accounted for, firefighters said.
PG&E spokesman Joe Molica promised that there would
be "thorough investigation" into the accident, and said the company
would cooperate with Cal/OSHA and other agencies.
"Obviously, this is a horrible tragedy, and our
thoughts and prayers are with the workers, their co-workers and with their
friends and families," he said.
Iconco/LVI Demolition Services is the contractor for the
demolition, said Amy McGahan, a spokeswoman for the company. The firm, also
known as LVI Environmental Services, was hired to decontaminate, decommission
and demolish portions of the plant. The work includes removing asbestos.
About 30 percent of the workers on the demolition were
hired from the neighborhood, said James Bryant, president of the A. Philip
Randolph Institute, a community group that has been monitoring the project.
"They've had an exemplary safety record so
far," he said. "They've been doing a controlled take-down, and this
is a surprise."
Records show that LVI Environmental Services has had its
"fair share of accidents" in California, but not enough to elicit
unusual alarm, said state Office of Industrial Relations spokesman Dean Fryer.
The company had an accident May 4 at the Hunters Point
demolition site but was not cited, Fryer said. That accident involved a worker
who struck his head on a phone box as he tried to move a transformer down a
stairwell. He knocked himself out and suffered a neck injury.
LVI was cited last year and still faces a $6,500 fine for
an accident in Los Angeles. In that incident, a demolition worker was cutting
an elevator cable to remove it when the cable wrapped around his leg and broke
it.
Authorities say a subsequent inspection showed the
company did not have an accident prevention plan, but the company is appealing
that citation, Fryer said.
Not having an injury prevention program is a
"serious violation," Fryer said, but he added that he has seen far
worse track records.