There is a prevailing attitude in the construction industry that the regular media does not give their work decent coverage. They feel that the only time construction gets top billing in the national press is when some big record is broken or there is a catastrophic accident at a job site, perhaps resulting in injury or death. Yet while there may be some truth to that belief, one has to admit that a lot of the construction stories that actually do get media coverage are just plain weird. Here's a couple of bizarre construction news items from just this past week alone:

On December 12 in Richmond VA work was stopped on a construction site after a backhoe unearthed an unexploded artillery shell thought to date from the Civil War-era. Traffic on I-95 was temporarily halted, and the Richmond bomb squad was called in to safely detonated the Confederate weapon of destruction before it could kill any Yankee aggressors.

Now, while it is not uncommon for construction crews to uncover archeological artifacts during excavations in populated areas, there usually isn't a risk of setting off old munitions, let alone munitions that belong in a museum. For many this incident raises important questions, like "they had exploding artillery shells in the Civil War?" (Answer: Why yes, they did.) Or, "does this sort of thing happen often in the South, because if so my firm needs to reevaluate that new bid we were awarded in Atlanta." (Answer: Keep the contract, but add "Confederate Weapons Disposal" to the budget projections. They will understand.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a tower crane in Seattle appears to have gone insane. Buffeted by unusually high winds, the unmanned crane was spinning around madly for hours on end, drawing confused looks from pedestrians and construction workers alike. Turner Construction, which runs the site released a statement saying there was no immediate danger from the crane's strange behavior, and that they will be inspecting all of their cranes that were caught in the recent Seattle windstorms. There was no significant damage to the crane or the surrounding buildings, although it has been reported that a chain hanging from the crane smashed some decorative glass panels on a nearby skyscraper, and that the crane's operator will probably never live down this incident.

(Tudor Van Hampton, ENR's equipment editor, notes in an e-mail that "Regular tower crane procedures call for securing all loads (including headache ball, hook block and any chain or synthetic slings which may be attached to the hook) before closing down for the night. Sometimes, contractors also will hook up generators and ladders to the hook to prevent theft. But that could be hazardous, of course, in high winds, as seen here. It probably was a chain sling attached to the hook.

"This applies both to hammerhead and luffing tower cranes (this one was a luffer, I believe). Putting it in 'weather-vane' mode is standard procedure and very important to ensure structural integrity. The Bellevue collapse may have been due to NOT putting the crane in weather-vane mode, as we have already reported.")

Written descriptions are sometimes not enough, so here's a link to a video of the twirling tower crane one unnerved Seattle resident posted on YouTube. There are several other videos online of the crane's wild ride, but they lack this one's running commentary. It includes such incisive observations as "is it supposed to keep going round and round?" and "that should have stopped!" (Warning, video contains a bit of strong language, which most people probably used some variant of when they looked up and first saw the crane.)

For those in the industry, a construction job site can be seen as the embodiment of careful organization and planning. Yet to the laymen passing by on the street it appears to be controlled chaos, and it's a wonder anything goes up at all. While skilled workers on the site usually know what they are doing, average spectators, thinking of all the stories they have heard of ghastly accidents and freak deaths, glance over with a almost-morbid curiosity. But sometimes it gets too weird on a site even for the seasoned construction worker, and all anyone can do is scratch his or her head and watch dumbfounded. And that right there is something newsworthy.

December 21, 2006

Construction is an industry that's grounded in reality.

Whats the media got to do with anything that remotely resembles reality anyway?

Your observations are probably more valid than I give you credit for but the media knows almost nothing about a well planned or poorly planned operation.

Maybe you could ground yourself in the reality that things always happen for a reason. Find the reason.

Todd Wilson