Construction activity and the Code

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Here is the crux of the biscuit, my friends:

Lugo says he and the others were on overtime when the fast moving storm hit. Others Action News spoke with said they had already left for the day and the job should have stopped till the storm past.

"He made his decision to work. You're responsible for your own safety, but somebody should have said something. Tragedy could have been averted. It's a shame," carpenter John Hoban said.
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http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8357432

Highlights added for emphasis.

Also, the worker was a laborer, not a concrete worker. He was a member of Local 415. It appears the concrete workers took off and someone had the laborers stay out in the storm and keep working.

I pretty much am going to rest my case at this point. While pointing out that OSHA has a dim view of keeping people working during lightning storms, if what I have presented so far does not make the OP understand what happened and the reason it did happen was pure and simple greed and failure to heed common sense safety procedures nothing will.

The facts are facts. The accident could and should have been prevented by a stoppage of work. Since the laborers probably weren't operating the equipment, the decision to keep working in the storm had to have come from general management.

The firm that is running the project has had it's run in with the unions at the Trade Center Project, particularly the concrete workers who went on strike Aug. 1.
 
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don_resqcapt19 said:
The non-function shunts are required by NFPA 780, the document you say is the cure all for all lightning protection issues.
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The shunts were non-functional because the practical issues in making proper connection of them were not considered.NFPA 780 does not describe how to make shunt connections in a given situation.Does it? By the way,Where did I tell you the document is the cure all for all lightning protection issues ?
 
K8MHZ said:
Was the situation in NJ an NFPA 780 violation?

Let's start there.

For clarification, since the link you posted is now dead, they were on a 53 story building on the fifth level roof deck. They were pouring cement and working with a cement pourer. The basket of the pourer got struck while one worker was touching it.

http://www.jerseycitypersonalinjury...ghtning-at-new-jersey-construction-site.shtml

Now, the only way to have reduced the amount of current that traveled through the worker's body would have been to somehow provide a very low impedance path from the bucket to the metal roofing deck that the worker was standing on. Even so, since lightning seeks any and all paths to ground, some current would still have flowed through the worker, only at a reduced level.

Now, consider the logistics of that. The bucket is moving up and down all day long, sometimes traveling hundreds of feet.

It is not clear if there was any warning of the impending storm or not. What was clear was that the workers were at least 50 feet off the ground, outside, standing on a metal deck while touching a basket supported from a very tall metal structure.

The rolling sphere theory falls all to pieces here. The bucket was supported by a metal structure much higher than the bucket, plus they were standing next to a building that was 53 stories tall. The bolt ignored the top of the crane or support tower, the 500 plus foot tall building, and went in between the two and struck a metal bucket about 50 feet off the ground.

Since I don't have a copy of the regs here, would you please tell me if you think there were any violations to any codes that may have contributed to the accident?
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First I want to express my sincere appreciation for your efforts. :thumbsup:

The subject lift is attached to the building structure and hence part of the structure and so NFPA 780 applies.One must see to it (by suitable design and positioning of the lift) that the movement of bucket of the lift is such that the bonding of the bucket to the building structure is not necessary per NFPA 780.But prior to the subject lightning incident,the bucket was so close to the building structure that necessitated its bonding to building structure per NFPA780. That this was not complied with had as a consequence the subject lightning incident.
 
But prior to the subject lightning incident,the bucket was so close to the building structure that necessitated its bonding to building structure per NFPA780.
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Can you cite me the language in NFPA 780 that requires a concrete bucket to be bonded to the building structure?

There is an investigation going on by OSHA. If there were any violations, they will find them. They have about four more weeks to finish their work.

I admit, I don't have a copy of NFPA 780 to reference to, but I don't think there is any requirement to bond a cement bucket. If there is, I would like to know the exact wording.

Oh, and exactly how is the bonding of the bucket supposed to be accomplished?
 
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First I want to express my sincere appreciation for your efforts.
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Thank you.

Even though we have an exact opposite opinion, our goal is the same, to keep workers from being killed or injured by lightning.

My take is to stop work. On that particular project, most of the trades did stop work. The laborers on the roof did not. One got killed, and a couple more injured. I know for sure if they had went home with the rest of the work force, they would not have been hit by lighting on the site.

If bonding was done or not, or done differently, it is only opinion as to whether or not they would have been kept out of harm's way while still working.

What it sounds like happened is that the cement workers went home, most likely due to a storm at the end of the shift, and the laborers decided to grab some OT and took over the pour. If that happened, the cement workers have a valid grievance to file, and this one would have teeth due to the fact that there was a fatality. If the skilled cement workers (who just went on strike for Tishman at the WTC in August) decided there was a hazard and left and the management decided to use unskilled laborers to finish the pour, I can see a major lawsuit. I hope that the family of the deceased looks into this. With the help of Laborer's Local 415 maybe the family can get some compensation and maybe some common sense rules will be put into place about lightning. I would also be interested in knowing if there was an OE running the lift for the bucket, or did a laborer do that as well?

If management used laborers to do work that the skilled trades considered to hazardous to perform, management abused those laborers. Laborers are usually the lowest paid of the trades and they do the most physical work. They are also less likely to stand up against management than a skilled trades person and just do their assigned work without question. The laborers overtime pay was probably about what straight time was for the cement workers.

I know if that project was here, no one would have been hit by lightning. We scurry like rats at the first flash and seek safe haven. I don't even know if it's a rule, we just do it.

So, if you do find a 780 violation, that's fine, but please post the exact language. And even if you do, those laborers should not have been outside on a metal roof during a lightning storm. They had as much warning as the other trades that left.

Right now, OSHA only prohibits work on scaffolds and platforms during storms. I think it should be expanded to any type of work that is outside or in construction projects that are partially completed and not closed in.
 
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I just downloaded a copy of NFPA 780. The words 'crane' and 'bucket' are not there. 'Tower' is covered under 'ordinary structures'. I would not consider a temporary structure on a construction project to be an 'ordinary structure'. Note that there is a distinction between 'ordinary' structures and any and all structures.

So, any assertion that the lack of the bonding of the bucket or the crane is in violation of a 780 rule is unfounded.

780 also has a diagram of the rolling sphere model. If applied to the accident, the workers would have been FAR outside a 150 foot rolling sphere. By all means, if the rolling sphere model was accurate, the top of the building or the top of the towers would have been hit, not a bucket tucked in between two huge structures situated in the shadows of two huge towers, possibly over 500 feet tall.
 
Under the chapter covering miscellaneous structures, I did find this:

5.4 Metal Towers and Tanks.
Metal towers and tanks constructed so as to receive a stroke of lightning without damage shall require
only bonding to ground terminals as required in Chapter 4, except as provided in Chapter 7.
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Building steel is considered a ground terminal. (Note it does not say 'grounding electrode')

That covers the tower. The crane, jib, cables and bucket are not covered.

I render to the jury that the provisions outlined in NFPA 780 be considered moot based upon the fact that it does not cover the equipment in question, nor does it indicate any flaw in the construction of the tower supporting the equipment in question.
 
K8MHZ said:
I render to the jury that the provisions outlined in NFPA 780 be considered moot based upon the fact that it does not cover the equipment in question, nor does it indicate any flaw in the construction of the tower supporting the equipment in question.
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The way you are dealing with the subject is highly interesting.

As you have mentioned in post no.106,let us wait for four weeks or so till OHSA publishes their report and I hope you may arrange for a link to it.
 
T.M.Haja Sahib said:
The way you are dealing with the subject is highly interesting.

As you have mentioned in post no.106,let us wait for four weeks or so till OHSA publishes their report and I hope you may arrange for a link to it.
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Sadly, this accident will have faded into obscurity by the time the investigation is over. There will be other accidents, storms and celebrity gossip that will bury this and everything else in prior news beneath it.

In one of the links I posted there was some info about the investigation and that OSHA was doing it. Since OSHA won't likely release the report just for the fun of it, any interested parties may have to ask directly for a report.

The best place to start would be with Local 415. If you remind me several weeks from now I will give them a call and check to see if they know the outcome of the investigation. Dealing with a union local is easier for me than dealing with a government entity. Also, the locals handle the worker's insurance. I'll bet that the insurance companies are also doing an investigation.

I did learn something here and that is how bad NFPA 780 really is. Anyone that has grown up in an area with many lightning storms can tell you for sure that the rolling sphere theory is totally inaccurate. I am one of those people and I have seen lighting do some very strange things. Several years ago a pine tree got hit next to a friends car and truck parked in his driveway. The tree had a split about 4 inches wide down it. Both the car and the truck were covered with wood chips, hundreds of them. The car was covered with a layer of sap that looked like plastic wrap. There was no charring. In fact, fires caused directly by lightning are rare here. Most of the time the area of the strike has no charring at all.

I told you about the pane of glass with the hole in it. I used to have a piece of two wire cable that lightning hit. One end was welded together, the other was not and all the insulation was totally gone. The solid conductor wire showed no signs of charring, even at the end that was welded together.

I know of a house fire that was started when lighting hit the electrical / telephone entrance. The surge in the wiring started the fire, but what was interesting was that the homeowner was talking on a cordless phone at the time. When the bolt hit the land line telephone service it surged the house so bad the the hand held the customer was talking on exploded. This was very odd. The firefighter that told me about the incident said he had never heard of that happening before.

I take training from the National Weather Service to keep my certification as a Skywarn spotter valid. The weather service has photos and reports of lighting doing exactly what it isn't supposed to do.

I have a friend that takes pictures of lightning and sells them. He is the one that was in a car when it got hit. He was lucky and just lost some radio equipment.

The more you are exposed to lightning the more you realize that there is no way to control it or harness it and every system is prone to failure. Sure, we have lightning protection that works 99.9 percent of the time, I know that to be true due to my work with public service radios. I also know, and have witnessed directly what happens when the very best protection system money can buy takes a direct high energy hit. That system was our county central police and fire dispatch system. They were down for nearly two days while repairs were being made.

Cell towers take hundreds of hits and have the best lightning protection known to man, but every once in a while, one can't handle it and goes down.

I wouldn't trust a mechanical system to protect me from lightning while I was working outside until it had been successfully used for decades with no failures, which I know is impossible.

"History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of man"

---Buck Dharma
 
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K8MHZ said:
I did learn something here and that is how bad NFPA 780 really is. Anyone that has grown up in an area with many lightning storms can tell you for sure that the rolling sphere theory is totally inaccurate.
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You misunderstood the way the rolling sphere method works:It is not designed for intercepting ALL lightning.

K8MHZ said:
I know of a house fire that was started when lighting hit the electrical / telephone entrance. The surge in the wiring started the fire, but what was interesting was that the homeowner was talking on a cordless phone at the time. When the bolt hit the land line telephone service it surged the house so bad the the hand held the customer was talking on exploded. This was very odd. The firefighter that told me about the incident said he had never heard of that happening before.
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Perhaps the side flash again the culprit?


K8MHZ said:
The more you are exposed to lightning the more you realize that there is no way to control it or harness it and every system is prone to failure. Sure, we have lightning protection that works 99.9 percent of the time, I know that to be true due to my work with public service radios. I also know, and have witnessed directly what happens when the very best protection system money can buy takes a direct high energy hit. That system was our county central police and fire dispatch system. They were down for nearly two days while repairs were being made.

Cell towers take hundreds of hits and have the best lightning protection known to man, but every once in a while, one can't handle it and goes down.
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Your report is vague.Please support with data.What were damaged?What are the rating of SPD's employed?What are the remedial actions proposed to prevent recurrence of same lightning incident etc.,
 
T.M.Haja Sahib said:
You misunderstood the way the rolling sphere method works:It is not designed for intercepting ALL lightning.



Perhaps the side flash again the culprit?




Your report is vague.Please support with data.What were damaged?What are the rating of SPD's employed?What are the remedial actions proposed to prevent recurrence of same lightning incident etc.,
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The central dispatch indecent was one of the things that made me consider getting into ham radio. As such, I had not been in the center prior to the strike. I have seen the designs of other antenna installations in the city and they use Poly Phaser SPD's and follow their installation recommendations.

The primary transmitters were in the basement of a large seven story building owned by the telephone company. The main central dispatch radios and the telephones to the dispatch center were damaged. I was listening on the scanner when it happened. The dispatch center had some radio ability and could talk to some vehicles. 911 was routed to another county. I was so impressed by the choreography and how few calls were missed I decided I wanted to learn more.

The subject of that strike came up in my first telecommunications class as the teachers were dispatchers when it happened. The story was simple. They had the best system they could get and it failed, just as many do. Luckily, there are very few failures due to the skill of companies like Poly Phaser.

There is no perfect system.

The entire operation has now moved to a different location in a new building.

It sounds like you are very interested in lightning. Here is the site that Poly Phaser is sold from. There is tons of info about lightning and surge protection there.

http://www.protectiongroup.com/Home

These are the arrestors we use. There are cheaper, copy cats, but Poly Phaser is the most trusted.

http://www.protectiongroup.com/Surge/RF-Lightning-Protection

Here is just one article from their knowledge base, as an example

http://www.protectiongroup.com/Prot...PapersandTechnicalNotes/1485-022.pdf?ext=.pdf

As for the phone being a victim of side flash, that is one possibility. Another is EMP, since the phone was actually a radio.

That is one of four instances where I have heard of lighting going inside a residential structure. The one with the hole in the pane of glass had a bolt pass through a breezeway. I know an electrical inspector that has seen ball lighting inside two different houses.

Even the National Lightning Safety Institute considers lightning to be pretty much uncontrollable under all circumstances.

Lightning "prevention" or "protection" (in an absolute sense) is impossible. A diminution of its consequences, together with incremental safety improvements, can be obtained by the use of a holistic or systematic hazard mitigation approach, described below in generic terms.
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http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/lpts.html

I challenge you to find anything that says any different.

To be totally realistic, what we use for lightning protection is better than nothing. Sometimes.

There is room for improvement. You seem very interested in the subject and I get the sense that you feel there is indeed a way to keep us all safe. If there is, it hasn't been found yet. Have you considered pursuing art of lightning protection design as a profession? You have the 'I know it can be done' attitude that the rest of us realists lack.
 
This is a better explanation:

III. Design Options. The most common lightning protection to structures is external in design. Lightning rods, downconductor wires, and ground rods incorporate the typical approach. In some situations, this configuration may be harmful, inadequate or even unnecessary. Air terminals, for example, on a munitions bunker or on a golf course rain shelter may lead to problems rather than to solutions. Not-so-common external configurations may include catenary screening and other partial Faraday designs. Finally, there are a number of unsubstantiated arrays such as the so called "dissipators" and "streamer modification" products. Caveat emptor.
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K8MHZ said:
I read it to mean that the bunkers didn't have air terminals as the system employed did not use them, not that they didn't have any system at all.
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What kind of lightning protection they had which would satisfy Richard Kithil?
 
T.M.Haja Sahib said:
What kind of lightning protection they had which would satisfy Richard Kithil?
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Well, both quotes I posted about the bunkers were from Mr. Kithil's company's web site, so I would assume he is OK with them.

Here is a quote from Mr. Kithil:

First some general comments about lightning. It has its own agenda. It is entirely capricious, random, and unpredictable. Man's attempts to fit lightning into a convenient box, with Codes and Standards to describe its behavior, are a best guess.
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http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/letter_to_editor.html
 
K8MHZ said:
This is a better explanation:
III. Design Options. The most common lightning protection to structures is external in design. Lightning rods, downconductor wires, and ground rods incorporate the typical approach. In some situations, this configuration may be harmful, inadequate or even unnecessary. Air terminals, for example, on a munitions bunker or on a golf course rain shelter may lead to problems rather than to solutions. Not-so-common external configurations may include catenary screening and other partial Faraday designs. Finally, there are a number of unsubstantiated arrays such as the so called "dissipators" and "streamer modification" products. Caveat emptor.
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I do not see about the inapplicability of air terminals on munition bunker other than when the bunker is buried in the ground.For golf course rain shelter,the problem is already solved:see
http://www.lightningguardian.com/resources.html under Golf Course Shelters.
 
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